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Keywords: ATEX Risk Assessment, Human-Machine Interaction (HMI), Integrated Safety Assessment
(ISA)
INTRODUCTION
ATEX (explosive atmosphere) risk assessment is required when any equipment or protective
systems are intended for use in potentially explosive atmospheres. The standard ATEX risk evaluation
result relies on a semi-quantitative approach which is based on the following indexes: probability of an
explosive atmosphere formation, probability of the presence of an effective ignition source,
consequences. However, when reviewing the whole ATEX risk assessment procedures and their
results, although many operations are performed by operators, influences from human and
organizational factors (HOFs) are mostly neglected. (e.g. maintenance activity, as in Demichela et al.,
2014, that could even bring to major accidents, as in Piccinini & Demichela, 2012). The ATEX-HMI
(Human-Machine Interaction)-ISA (Integrated Safety Assessment) methodology is proposed in this
paper, in order to be able to analyse the HOFs influences on ATEX hazards.
The ATEX-HMI-ISA methodology needs to face to two challenges: 1) identification of the HOFs
influence on the ATEX risk assessment under the Human-Machine Interaction (HMI) system; 2)
quantification of the HOFs influence with the Integrated Safety Assessment (ISA). To deal with
challenge 1 & 2, the ATEX-HMI-ISA methodology is developed from the standard ATEX risk
assessment methodology (see Figure 1), which consists of four steps: 1) Area Classification, 2)
Ignition Source Identification, 3) Consequence Analysis, and 4) ATEX Risk Evaluation.
Human-Machine Interaction (HMI): Apart from the step 3 (Consequence Analysis) - that is highly
relied on the results from the area classification (step 1), and the step 4 (ATEX Risk Evaluation) - that
needs to integrate step 1-3, the step 1 (Area Classification) and the step 2 (Ignition Source
Identification) are the main considerations of the HOFs integration in the ATEX-HMI-ISA methodology.
Integrated Safety Assessment (ISA): Once HOFs influence in each step is identified, ISA aims to
provide the method for “how to quantify the HOFs influence”. Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) is
introduced to be able to quantify the risk with two parts: 1) transferred probability from initial results of
each step in the standard ATEX risk assessment; and 2) Human Error Probability (HEP) from the
Human reliability analysis (HRA). HRA, as one of the important categories of the human factor
techniques, aims to identify and quantify human error. However, in this paper, we are not aiming to
explain how HRA works, but focusing on how to integrate HRA into the developed methodology. Since
the previous works of the HRA integration were based on the Area Classification (Geng et al., 2014;
Geng et al., 2015), in this paper, the step 2 (Ignition Source Identification) are explained in more
details than the step 1 (Area Classification) as an example.
Further, the final ATEX risk evaluation remains in the ATEX-HMI-ISA methodology, which is still
using semi-quantitative values to calculate (RHOF=PHOF*CHOF*D’HOF). However, those semi-quantitative
values (PHOF, CHOF, and D’HOF) derived from each step are determined by the PSA. In the end, the final
ATEX risk evaluation result (RHOF) is influenced by the modified values of PHOF, CHOF and D’HOF. As
mentioned above, two situations coming from the HOFs influence may occur:
1) In case of the plant with the sufficient management,
Result (ATEX-HMI-ISA) = Result (Standard ATEX Risk Assessment)
2) In case of the plant with the insufficient management,
Result (ATEX-HMI-ISA) = Result (Standard ATEX Risk Assessment + HOFs Influence)
5. Is this risk
tolerable?
1a. ATEX Area 2a. ATEX Ignition 3a. ATEX
Classification Sources Analysis Consequence
Analysis Considering the Analysis
Considering the Failure of HOFs Considering the
Failure of HOFs (CHOF) Failure of HOFs
(PHOF) (D’HOF)
Mitigation of Risks
During normal
Not relevant
foreseeable
malfunction
malfunction
During rare
No.
operation
Potential
During
Description/ Reasons for
Ignition
Basic Cause Assessment
Sources
Effectiveness
During normal
Not relevant
foreseeable
malfunction
malfunction
During rare
operation
Description Basis (citation of
During
PSA
of the standards, technical Technical
measure rules, experimental documentation
applied results
According to the obtained PSA from the step 1 (Area Classification) and step 2 (Ignition Source
Identification), the semi-quantitative values of PHOF and CHOF are determined (see Table 7). With the D
value calculated from the formula mentioned in the step 3 (Consequence Analysis), the ATEX-HMI
risk (RHOF) is the multiplication of PHOF, CHOF, and D’HOF (RHOF = PHOF*CHOF*D’HOF). The final risk level
refers to Table 8.
Table 7. The semi-quantitative ranking system for the ATEX risk evaluation
Area Probability of Explosive Semi-Quantitative Ranking System
Classification Atmosphere Formation in 365
Degree P or PHOF C or CHOF D or DHOF
Zone days (CEI 31-56, 2007)
Zone 0/20 P>10-1 Frequently 3 3 0.6
Zone 1/21 10-1≥P>10-3 Occasionaly 2 2 0.4
Zone 2/22 10-3≥P>10-5 Rarely 1 1 0.2
Zone NE 10-5>P Neglectable 0 0 0
Note:
- The D value showed in the table is based on the area classification zones and is only the part of the D’ value calculation;
- The D’ value is the sum of D value and other factors showed in Table 5; the maximum value of D’ for gas is 3, and the
maximum value of D’ for dust is 3.6.
CONCLUSION
This study aims to provide the advanced methodology that is able to analyse the HOFs influences on
ATEX hazards. Two challenges are addressed in the developed ATEX-HMI-ISA methodology: 1) in
order to identify the HOFs influence under the Human-Machine Interaction (HMI) system, each step of
the standard ATEX risk assessment was analyzed. Finally, the HOFs is identified as a barrier for the
further quantification. 2) PSA event tree was proposed for the Integrated Safety Assessment (ISA)
which enable to integrate the transferred initial quantitative results of each step from the standard
ATEX risk assessment and the potential barrier failures.
Acknowledgements
This research is supported in part by the INNHF project ---- “Innovation through Human Factors in risk analysis
and management”. The project is financed under EU FP7 Marie Curie Actions Initial Training Networks-FP7-
PEOPLE-2011-ITN: Project ID 289837.
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