Reliability and Safety Assessment of Dynamic Process Systems

Book excerpt: Current issues and approaches in the reliability and safety analysis of dynamic process systems are the subject of this book. The authors of the chapters are experts from nuclear, chemical, mechanical, aerospace and defense system industries, and from institutions including universities, national laboratories, private consulting companies, and regulatory bodies. Both the conventional approaches and dynamic methodologies which explicitly account for the time element in system evolution in failure modeling are represented. The papers on conventional approaches concentrate on the modeling of dynamic effects and the need for improved methods. The dynamic methodologies covered include the DYLAM methodology, the theory of continuous event trees, several Markov model construction procedures, Monte Carlo simulation, and utilization of logic flowgraphs in conjunction with Petri nets. Special emphasis is placed on human factors such as procedures and training.