Estimating uncertainty and variability in QRA of major industrial hazards

摘要

Among the many problems related to regulatory decision-making about major industrial hazards, the uncertainty affecting results of Quantitative Risk Assessment (QRA) is of major concern for decisionmakers charged with defining the accpetability of at-risk plant siting. In this paper, the main sources of the uncetainty affecting risk are analyzed with reference to the identification of the accident scenarios and the quantification of their likelihood as well as to the quantification of the expected adverse affects. A simplified QRA for a generic pressurized tank containing liquid chlorine is then performed and the uncertainty affecting risk is estimated using a 10000-trial Monte Carlo method for integrating probability distributions.