Analysis of domino effect in the process industry using the event tree method

Domino scenarios are known to have severe consequences that need to be considered in Land-Use Planning. A domino effect can be initiated by several types of primary accidents, which are usually caused by a loss of containment (LOC). This study focuses on the development of a specific model for the assessment of domino scenarios based on event tree analysis. The model provides the identification of the event sequences and the accident scenarios following a LOC. A ranking based on the criticality of domino scenarios is also provided. An illustrative case study was used to demonstrate the procedure. The results confirmed that the proposed method is an effective decision support tool for domino effect prevention, allowing the identification of the most dangerous storage or process units with respect to domino effect scenarios. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.