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Part II/Risk-Based Siting Criteria – Current and Future Efforts in Risk Management and Siting Applications
Ming Liu; Naval Facilities Engineering & Expeditionary Warfare Center; Port Hueneme, California, USA
Josephine Covino; Department of Defense Explosives Safety Board; Alexandria, VA, USA
Brandon Fryman; John Tatom and Jorge Flores A-P-T Research, Inc.; Huntsville, Alabama, USA
Jon Chrostowski, ACTA, Inc.; Torrance, California, USA
Keywords: Risk Management, Explosion Effects, Consequences, Risk-based Siting
Abstract
The U.S. Department of Defense Explosives Safety Board (DDESB) has established an approved quantitative risk
assessment (QRA) methodology for evaluating and accepting risks associated with explosives storage and other
activities. In the explosives safety community, QRA represents an alternative path for regulator acceptance to the
long-established, deterministic method of quantity-distance (QD), where a singular distance as a function of
explosives weight is determined acceptable. The QRA methodology is defined in DDESB Technical Paper (TP) 14
and consists of:
1. Estimate of probability of event (P
e
) as a function of activity type, hazard division (HD) of ammunition and
explosives (AE), and environmental factors,
2. Exposure modeling for various population groups,
3. Consequences in terms of potential fatalities and injuries given the occurrence of an event, and
4. Uncertainty modeling for the estimated risks.
The QRA model approved by DDESB has been recently updated, based on the latest advances in explosives field
test results, accident experiences, explosion effects, and structural response, to better reflect real-world accidental
explosions, but still provides conservative risk calculations.
Part II of this paper focuses on some details of the current efforts by the DDESB Risk Analysis Program that is
overviewed by Part I of this paper. These details include relooking at the P
e
, updating the uncertainty modeling,
relooking at the risk acceptance criteria by which QRA are compared to, and updates to the Universal Risk Scale
(URS). This paper also presents a way-ahead for this Program.
