Expert opinion use for probability assessment in safety studies: Main topics and elements of an application-oriented research program
✍ Scribed by Jacques F.J. van Steen
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 1987
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 568 KB
- Volume
- 32
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0377-2217
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Safety studies and risk analyses play an important role in societal decision making regarding activities that involve risk to the public, such as the storage and handling of hazardous materials. The assessment of failure probabilities of mechanical components is an essential part of such studies.
Current probability assessment approaches are almost exclusively based on failure data as stored in a limited number of databases. Associated with these databases are several shortcomings, causing probability assessments to be rather unreliable. Moreover, the analyst must resort to expert opinions for the assessment of failure probabilities. Although such an approach is admissible and practically feasible, it requires the development of procedures that can be checked and the solution of a number of specific problems that relate to this particular subject.
This paper presents an overview of the main topics that were identified in an introductory literature survey and of the key questions which are currently addressed in application-oriented research on this subject.