Correlating Quantitative Risk Assessment and Exergy Analysis for Accounting Inefficiency in Process Hazards: A Case Study

The core of the work is the investigation of the possible correlation between the thermodynamics and the hazards of a process. The objective is understanding the role of inefficiency in hazards consequences. To investigate such correlation, a case study from oil and gas sector is developed, where exergy analysis is used to study the thermodynamics of the process and a simplified quantitative risk assessment (QRA) is performed to evaluate the consequences of identified hazards. The thermo-economic approach is then used to correlate the two analyses. Through the analysis, the authors want to identify those components where hazardous consequences may be affected by inefficiency, aiming to reduce the risk of fatalities in processes by operating on the process itself or suggesting possible alternative strategies. The purpose of the paper is also to propose for further investigation on the correlation between inefficiency and process hazards.