Functional evidential reasoning model (FERM) – A new systematic approach for exploring hazardous chemical operational accidents under uncertainty

Abstract

This paper proposed a new systematic approach – functional evidential reasoning model (FERM) for exploring hazardous chemical operational accidents under uncertainty. First, FERM was introduced to identify various causal factors and their performance changes in hazardous chemical operational accidents, along with determining the functional failure link relationships. Subsequently, FERM was employed to elucidate both qualitative and quantitative operational accident information within a unified framework, which could be regarded as the input of information fusion to obtain the fuzzy belief distribution of each cause factor. Finally, the derived risk values of the causal factors were ranked while constructing multi-level accident causation chains to unveil the weak links in system functionality and the primary roots of operational accidents. Using the specific case of the “1·15” major explosion and fire accident at Liaoning Panjin Haoye Chemical Co., Ltd., seven causal factors and their corresponding performance changes were identified. Additionally, five accident causation chains were uncovered based on the fuzzy joint distribution of the functional assessment level (FAL) and reliability distribution (RD), revealing an overall increase in risk along the accident evolution path. The research findings demonstrated that FERM enabled the effective characterization, rational quantification and accurate analysis of the inherent uncertainties in hazardous chemical operational accident risks from a systemic perspective.