Quantitative assessment of domino and NaTech scenarios in complex industrial areas

Since the late 80s the application of quantitative risk assessment to the issue of land-use planning with respect to major accident hazards emerged as a topic to be addressed within the safety assessment of chemical and process plants. However, in the case of industrial clusters or complex industrial areas specific methodologies are needed to deal with high-impact low-probability (HILP) events. In the present study, innovative methodologies developed for the quantitative assessment of risk due to domino and NaTech scenarios are presented. In recent years a set of models for the calculation of equipment damage probability were developed. A specific effort was dedicated to the improvement of models for the calculation of equipment damage probability in these accident scenarios. In the present study, the application of these models to case-studies was analyzed. The results of the improved models obtained for NaTech quantitative assessment were compared to previous results in the literature. A specific innovative approach was developed to multi-level quantitative assessment of domino scenarios, and its potential was analyzed. The results were examined also evidencing the role and the progress with respect to the pioneering work started on these topics by Franco Foraboschi. •Quantitative Area Risk Analysis (QARA) is a powerful decision support tool.•QARA may be extended to assess NaTech and first and second-level domino scenarios.•NaTech scenarios are likely to give a relevant contribution to industrial risk assessed in QARA.•Second-level domino scenarios give a non-negligible contribution to industrial risk.•QARA extension to domino and NaTech is sufficiently is ready to become a standard tool.