Published September 18, 2024 | Version v1
Journal article Open

Operational Status Effect on the Seismic Risk Assessment of Oil Refineries

  • 1. National Technical University of Athens
  • 1. National Technical University of Athens
  • 2. ROR icon University of Birmingham

Description

The operational status of an oil refinery (type and scale of operations that take place at any time instance) largely determines the amount of fuel that is produced, circulated within the facility, and stored in tanks. This status is affected by seasonality, periods of peak or low demand, as well as periods of routine maintenance. However, it is an aspect that is typically neglected even though it stands out among the factors that determine the seismic performance of several critical industrial assets, such as the storage tanks, as well as the consequences of any potential failure. An open-data refinery testbed is employed herein to demonstrate the effect of the refinery’s operational status on the seismic risk estimates. Alternative realistic operational scenarios are developed following typical industry practices and are arranged over a time period between two refinery major maintenance shutdown events. The most probable damage state is selected for each asset to identify the most vulnerable ones. Based on the type and importance of the impacted assets, the potential consequences are determined at the facility level. Resulting estimates are very different if an earthquake strikes during a regular/high/low-demand period, or during a maintenance period. The framework can be utilized to identify the locations within the refinery that may trigger cascading failures and secondary damages, should their assets be damaged by a seismic event. The outcomes can be exploited by stakeholders, risk engineers, and emergency action planners for developing customized and businesslike procedures to enhance the seismic resilience of the facility.

Files

Melissianos-et-al._IJDRR2024_OperationStatusEffectOnTheSeismicRiskAssessmentOfOilRefineris-JOURNAL_PRE-PROOF.pdf

Additional details

Funding

European Commission
PLOTO – Deployment and Assessment of Predictive modelling, environmentally sustainable and emerging digital technologies and tools for improving the resilience of IWW against Climate change and other extremes 101069941
European Commission
METIS – METHODS AND TOOLS INNOVATIONS FOR SEISMIC RISK ASSESSMENT 945121

Dates

Available
2024-09-18