UTILIZATION OF PRINCIPLES FROM STRUCTURAL RELIABILITY IN QUANTITATIVERISK ANALYSIS - EXAMPLE FROM AN OFFSHORE TRANSPORT PROBLEM

The objective of this paper is to discuss the use of methods developed for calculation of the reliability of structures as a general tool fo r calculating probabilities within the context of quantitative risk an alysis. By applying these methods the analyst is enabled to model the system, the uncertainties and the parameter correlations separately an d systematically. This is ensured by flexible event and system modelli ng by logical combination of limit state functions and suitable uncert ainty modelling by assigning marginal probability distributions and co rrelation measures. These properties might enable the analyst to inclu de more knowledge in the analysis, compared to models traditionally ap plied in quantitative risk analysis. The subjectivistic theory of prob ability, which consistently allows subjective considerations to be inc luded in the analysis, is adopted and provides the framework for the d iscussions. The paper concludes that methods of structural reliability represent a useful tool for calculating probabilities in a great numb er of situations in quantitative risk analysis. An example from an off shore towing operation sketches how these methods can open for stochas tic modelling more in line with the characteristics of the actual syst em, compared to a typical event tree approach. (C) 1998 Elsevier Scien ce Limited.