ELEMENTS

OF
RISK ASSESSMENT
RISK Probability Consequence

FREQUENCY CONSEQUENCE
ANALYSIS ANALYSIS
Probabilistic model Fire and explosion
Leak frequency model modeling
Corrosion
Structural analysis
Risk Analysis
It is intended to avoid risk in a system
It can be applied
✓ design stage,
✓ development, construction stage and
✓ operation stage
Risk Analysis: Objectives
The entire risk assessment process answers three basic
questions:
• What can go wrong?: identifies the set of
undesirable (e.g., incident) scenarios.
• What is the likelihood that it will go wrong?
-Determine the probability or chances or
frequencies of these scenarios.
• What are the consequences if it does go wrong?
-Estimates the magnitude of potential losses.
Risk Analysis: Categories
Risk analysis can be categorized on the basis of the causes of risk or the
nature of loss (consequences) or both.

1.Health risk analysis: Determine potential diseases and losses of life

affecting humans, animals, and plants.
2.Process risk analysis: Estimate potential harms caused by accidents
(climatic conditions, fire, explosion etc.)
3.Security risk analysis: Estimate access and harm caused due to war,
terrorism, riot, crime.
4.Financial risk analysis: Determine potential individual, institutional and
societal monetary losses.
5.Environmental risk analysis: Determine losses due to noise,
contamination, and pollution in ecosystem
Core elements of risk
analysis Essentially turns
into an effort to
manage such
Focus on losses
identifying,
quantifying, and
characterizing
losses

Exchange of
Information
Types of risk assessment
QUALITATIVE RISK ASSESSMENT

The potential loss is qualitatively estimated

using linguistic scales such as low, medium,
RISK high.
ASSESSMENT
Output: risk matrix

QUANTITATIVE RISK ASSESSMENT

The quantitative risk assessment attempts to

estimate the risk in form of probability (or
frequency) of a loss
Risk assessment
Risk assessment is useful to estimate the safety,
reliability, and effectiveness of various products,
processes and facilities.

Engineering risk assessment consider the

• adverse environmental,
• health, and
• economic effects that can occur when an "engineered"
system fails.
Engineering risk assessment
Engineering risk assessment is performed by
answering the following questions:

What are the possible hazards, undesired occurrence

How likely is this to happen

If it happens, what consequences are expected

Engineering risk assessment
Risk can be measured by the following set of triplets:
𝑅 = 𝑆𝑖 , 𝑃𝑖 , 𝐶𝑖 , 𝑖 = 1,2,3, … , 𝑛
Si = Scenario of events that lead to hazard exposure
Pi = Likelihood of scenario i
Ci = Consequence due to occurrence of events in
scenario i (a measure of the amount of loss).

A more general form: 𝑅 = ෍ 𝑓𝑖 𝐶𝑖

𝑖 A risk analyst should have a good knowledge of
probability concepts
Example-1
Consider health hazards of Salmonella enteritidis (ES), which is the second
most common cause of food poisoning after Campylobacter. It has been found
primarily in unpasteurized milk, eggs, egg products, meat, and poultry. ES
can survive if food is not cooked properly. In the U.S., there are 19 ES-related
human illnesses per 106 shell eggs consumed, 710 deaths per million ES-
related illnesses, 47 billion shell eggs consumed per year, the average cost of
the illness is US$ 400 per case. Calculate economic risk (expected losses)
caused by ES illnesses and mortality risks due to consumption of shell eggs
in the U.S.
Example-2
Hazard Identification Techniques

Checklist HAZOP

What if
analysis
Checklist
A checklist is a list of questions about plant
organization, operation, maintenance and other
areas of concern to verify that various
requirements have been fulfilled and nothing is
neglected or overlooked.
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13
14
15
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HAZOP
The hazard and operability study (HAZOP) is a simple
structured methodology for hazard identification and
assessment.
PI&D, PFD, material flow diagrams, and operating
manuals are examined to identify causes and
consequences for all possible deviations from normal
operation that could arise
Adopted from http://pqri.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/pdf/HAZOP_Training_Guide.pdf
 What if
analysis
This technique involves asking a series of questions beginning with
“what if” as a means of identifying hazards.

✓What will happen if toxic gases leak into a liquid pipeline?

✓ What if tank feed is increased or decreased?
✓ What if an earthquake occurs?

Such questions can be critical in reducing or eliminating risks to

people in workplace.
It consists of structured brainstorming to determine
what can go wrong in a given scenario; then judge the
likelihood and consequences that things will go
wrong
QUALITATIVE
RISK ASSESSMENT
Qualitative Probability Categories
Probability Definition
Category
Frequent Likely to occur during the life of an individual item
Probable Likely to occur several time in the life of an individual item

Occasional Likely to occur sometime the life of an individual item

Remote Unlikely, but possible, to occur sometimes the life of

an individual item
Improbable Very unlikely to occur in the life of an individual item

Incredible Not expected to occur

Qualitative Consequence Categories
Consequence Definition
Category

Catastrophic Involving many deaths, significant loss of system

Critical Involving a few sever injuries, major system
damage

Marginal Minor injury, minor system damage

Negligible An event that can almost be ignored.

Multiplying the probability by the consequence

yields risk levels
Risk Assessment Matrix
Frequency Severity of Consequence
Frequency
of Catastrophic Critical Marginal Negligible
(per year)
Occurrence
Frequent >1 H H H I
Probable 1-10-1 H H I L
Occasional 10-1 – 10-2 H H L L
Remote 10-2 – 10-4 H H L L
Improbable 10-4 – 10-6 H I L T
Incredible <10-6 I I T T

H: High Risk, I: Intermediate Risk, L: Low Risk, T:

Trivial Risk
Risk Matrix

Severity
Frequency 1 2 3 4 5
5
4
3
2
1
Risk Matrix
Severity
Frequency 1 2 3 4 5
5 5 10 15 20 25
4 4 8 12 16 20
3 3 6 9 12 15
2 2 4 6 8 10
1 1 2 3 4 5

1-4 Low Risk, 5-9 Medium Risk, >10 High Risk

Risk Matrix
Exercise
A new grinding machine is connected to a cement processing unit.
Operators working on grinding unit has observed high level of noise
generated from rotating, grinding and milling from the grinding unit and
from shaking of the vibratory sieve shaker attached to the machine.
Since sound is higher than the company’s standards, it is believed that
consequences will be catastrophic and operators have to work on the
machine all the time. One of the screw bolt of the grinding unit is loose
causing small release of low pressure dust after 10,000 cycles of the
grinding unit (low possibility). Perform a qualitative risk assessment
using risk assessment tool. Propose risk remedies and evaluate residual
risk?