Risk assessment of methanol storage tank fire accident using hybrid FTA-SPA

Abstract

Fire accidents in storage tanks are of great importance due to the difficulty in extinguishing and ease of spread to nearby products. This study aimed to introduce a framework based on FTA-based Set Pair Analysis (SPA) established via experts’ elicitation to identify and assess the risk of storage tank fire. In the quantitative FTA of a system, sufficient data are only sometimes available to calculate the failure probability of the system appertains to study. Thus, the obtained result of the SPA added new value to the Basic Events (BEs) and estimated top event. To illustrate the applicability of the proposed approach, a fault tree of the methanol storage tank fire is performed and analyzed BEs. According to the obtained results, the fire accident was computed by 48 BEs, and the occurrence probability value of the top event was estimated 2.58E-1/year. In addition, the most crucial paths that led to the fire accident are listed in this study. The proposed approach established in the present study can assist decision-makers in determining where to take preventative or appropriate action on the storage tank system. Moreover, it can be adjusted for various systems with limited manipulation.