Component failure rate data sources for probabilistic safety and reliability

Abstract

Probabilistic safety methods, which are being used in the chemical, manufacturing, and energy industries, create a basic need for input data on failure rates of the mechanical, electrical, instrumentation and control, and other components that comprise the engineering systems in a facility. Some companies have data stored and easy to retrieve. Other companies hire consultants who use their own databases to perform safety assessments. For analysts who do not have either of these options available, this article presents data sources that are retrievable from the literature. The accessibility of data documents via the internet is also described. © 2010 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog, 2010

Nitrogen gas spillage in a confined space located in the Gran Sasso Underground Nuclear Physics Laboratory: an outstanding oxygen deficiency hazard case study

“…In order to proceed with the fault tree analysis, in the following Table1 are reported the electrical/mechanical instrumentations and human actions failure rates (or pure probability) involved in the quantitative analysis of the oxygen deficiency event in the storage area [3][4][5]. Figure 5 shows the fault tree diagram designed to be simulated by the use of Relex 7.5 software tool.…”

Solving the Problem of Multiple-Criteria Building Design Decisions with respect to the Fire Safety of Occupants: An Approach Based on Probabilistic Modelling

“…There exist large collections of data on fires in general [8]. Databases related to fires are collected and maintained in such particular areas as safety of nuclear power plants [32]. Unfortunately, the data situation in some specific areas of fire safety (e.g., sprinklers and fire alarms) is not very encouraging [33].…”

Making better use of operational experience for nuclear power plants safety

“…There are numerous examples of application resulting from the operational experience activity at the national levels. Calculation of frequency of initiating events and component failure rates are most obvious examples (e.g., [7]). This is especially important since not always all detailed collected events are publicly available.…”