How the chemical industry can benefit from PRA

Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) is a method of quantifying the frequency of occurrence and the magnitude of the consequences of accidents in systems that contain hazardous materials such as radioactive fission products, and toxic, flammable or explosive chemicals. The frequency and the magnitude of the consequences are the basic elements of any definition or risk, which is often simply expressed as the product of frequency and magnitude, summed over all accident sequences. PRA is now a mature technique that has been used to estimate risk for a number of industrial facilities. In this paper the author gives examples of beneficial uses of PRA