TB1 - TOOLS AND RISK ANALYSIS

The aim of the Toolbox, “Industrial and Natural Risk Assessment Tools”, is to provide students with the methodological bases and general concepts and philosophy of disaster risk science. Apart from the methodological approach stricto sensu, the course seeks to provide elements of reflection in terms of cohabitation and the reciprocal impact of classified industrial installations for the protection of the environment (including the SEVESO classification for particularly dangerous sites) and surrounding areas. By dealing with this issue at a company level we attempt to respond to the following questions: what are the risk management tools available to an industrial establishment, from a point of view of instrumentation but also of organisation? What prevention and protection methods should be put in place ? Case studies during this module will enable students to acquire an initial experience in the use of methods for identifying, assessing and analysing risks, used in all sectors of industry and in research.
The Toolbox will also enable students to acquire the theoretical bases for the study of industrial accident consequences, and in particular the modelling of the intensity of dangerous phenomena leading to major industrial accidents (toxic, thermal, excessive pressure). The acquisitions from the module will contribute to the general culture of an engineer, essential for modelling complex industrial systems and for operational and strategic decision taking, combining both technical components (technological choices, strategic innovations, etc.) and managerial aspects (disaster risk science outlook, human factors, respect of constraints and the regulation context). All this knowledge will contribute to a pertinent vision of industrial reality, highlighting the concerns of all industrial site managers and risk managers in general, at different levels: local (companies, local authorities, population, NGOs), national level (legislators, the State, Departments of environment, planning and housing, etc.) and at the European level (transposition of European directives). The programme was designed to meet expectations of major enterprises which require generalists with this supplementary operational skill.

The Toolbox is composed of two coherent units:

Unit : Hazard and Risk assessment methods 

• The succinct presentation of a range of fundamental methods, tools of assessment and industrial risk management and their application fields;
• Systemic, probability and deterministic approach, the issue of risk acceptability
• The analysis, a posteriori, of major industrial accident cases (Experience Feedback)
• Case study for the application of this knowledge and its practical implementation with the help of SARA (Systemic approach to risk assessment) training modules using XRISK software (facilitating the parallel implementation of the most common industrial risk assessment methods).
• National policies for the sector, regulatory framework (national and European), the roles of actors and their respective obligations (ATEX, REACH, Technological Risk Prevention Plans,…).

• Theoretical presentation of physical phenomena relating to industrial accidents (e.g. BLEVE)
• Presentation of modelling methods and supervised studies of calculations for the assessment of three potentially undesirable effects for an industrial installation when an industrial accident occurs – thermal, excessive pressure, toxic discharge …
• Quantitative study of consequences – modelling and practical applications using ALOHA software.

The content of this Toolbox is complementary to the “Reliability and Design” Toolbox, and the “Risks, Territory, Crisis Management” project. Following these programmes in parallel can constitute an interesting and coherent orientation. Knowledge acquired will moreover be valorised in all the courses dealing with the environment, management and process engineering:
Major: Industrial and Territorial Environment 
Toolbox: Environmental assessment
Toolbox: Systems Modelling
Multi-disciplinary project: Ecological transition and territorial resilience
Multi-disciplinary project: Renewable energy
Multi-disciplinary project: Environment professions
The theme of industrial risks is universal and knowledge acquired in this Toolbox is valuable and extremely useful for implementing certain industrial projects and during enterprise internships.