reface

Our previous IEEE Press book, Probabilistic Risk Assessment, was directed primarily at
development of the mathematical tools required for reliability and safety studies. The title
was somewhat a misnomer; the book contained very little material pertinent to the qualitative
and management aspects of the factors that place industrial enterprises at risk.
This book has a different focus. The (updated) mathematical techniques material
in our first book has been contracted by elimination of specialized topics such as vari-
ance reduction Monte Carlo techniques, reliability importance measures, and storage tank
problems; the expansion has been entirely in the realm of management trade-offs of risk
versus benefits. Decisions involving trade-offs are complex, and not easily made. Primi-
tive academic models serve little useful purpose, so we decided to pursue the path of most
resistance, that is, the inclusion of realistic, complex examples. This, plus the fact that we
believe engineers should approach their work with a mathematical—not a trade school—
mentality, makes this book difficult to use as an undergraduate text, even though all required
mathematical tools are developed as appendices. We believe this book is suitable as an un-
dergraduate plus a graduate text, so a syllabus and end-of-chapter problems are included.
The book is structured as follows:
Chapter 1: Formal definitions of risk, individual and population risk, risk aversion,
safety goals, and goal assessments are provided in terms of outcomes and likelihoods.
Idealistic and pragmatic goals are examined.
Chapter 2: Accident-causing mechanisms are surveyed and classified. Coupling,
dependency, and propagation mechanisms are discussed. Risk-management princi-
ples are described. Applications to preproduction quality assurance programs are
presented.
Chapter 3: Probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) techniques, including event trees, pre-
liminary hazard analyses, checklists, failure mode and effects analysis, hazard and
xv
xvi Preface

operability studies, and fault trees, arc presented, and staff requirements and manage-
ment considerations are discussed. The appendix includes mathematical techniques
and a detailed PRA example.
Chapter 4: Fault-tree symbols and methodology arc explored. A new, automated,
fault-tree synthesis method based on (lows. How controllers, semantic networks, and
event development rules is described and demonstrated.
Chapter 5: Qualitative aspects of system analysis, including cut sets and path sets and
the methods o\' generating them, arc described. Common-cause failures, mullistale
variables, and coherency are treated.
Chapter 6: Probabilistic failure parameters such as failure and repair rates are defined
rigorously and the relationships between component parameters are shown. Laplace
and Markov analyses are presented. Statistical distributions and their properties are
considered.
Chapter 7: Confidence limits of failure parameters, including classical and Bayesian
approaches, form the contents of this chapter.
Chapter 8: Methods for synthesizing quantitative system behavior in terms of the
occurrence probability of basic failure events are developed and system performance
is described in terms of system parameters such as reliability, availability, and mean
time to failure. Structure functions, minimal path and cut representations, kinetic-tree
theory, and short-cut methods are treated.
Chapter 9: Inclusion-exclusion bounding, standby redundancy Markov transition
diagrams, beta-factor, multiple Greek letter, and binomial failure rate models, which
are useful tools for system quantification in the presence of dependent basic events,
including common-cause failures, are given. Examples are provided.
Chapter 10: Human-error classification, THERP (techniques for human error-rate
prediction) methodology for routine and procedure-following error, HCR (human
cognitive reliability) models for nonresponse error under time pressure, and con-
fusion models for misdiagnosis are described to quantitatively assess human-error
contributions to system failures.
Chapter 11: Parametric uncertainty and modeling uncertainty are examined. The
Bayes theorem and log-normal distribution are used for treating parametric uncer-
tainties that, when propagated to system levels, are treated by techniques such as
Latin hypercube Monte Carlo simulations, analytical moment methods, and discrete
probability algebra.
Chapter 12: Aberrant behavior by lawyers and government regulators are shown
to pose greater risks to plant failures than accidents. The risks are described and
loss-prevention techniques are suggested.
In using this book as a text, the schedule and sequence of material for a thrce-crcdit-
hour course are suggested in Tables 1 and 2. A solutions manual for all end-of-chaptcr
problems is available from the authors. Enjoy.
Chapter 12 is based on the experience of one of us (EJH) as director of Maxxim
Medical Inc. The author is grateful to the members of the Regulatory Affairs, Human
Resources, and Legal Departments of Maxxim Medical Inc. for their generous assistance
and source material.
Preface xvii

TABLE 1. Undergraduate Course Schedule

Week Chapter Topic

1,2,3 4 Fault-Tree Construction

4,5 5 Qualitative Aspects of System Analysis
6 3(A1,A2) Probabilities, Venn Diagrams, Boolean Operations
7,8,9 6 Quantification of Basic Events
10,11 7 Confidence Intervals
12,13 8 Quantitative Aspects of System Analysis

TABLE 2. Graduate Course Schedule

Week Chapter Topic

1,2 1 Basic Risk Concepts

3,4 2 Accident-Causing Mechanisms and Risk Management
5,6,7 3 Probabilistic Risk Assessment
8,9 9 System Quantification for Dependent Basic Events
10 10 Human Reliability
11,12 11 Uncertainty Quantification
13 12 Legal and Regulatory Risks

We are grateful to Dudley Kay, and his genial staff at the IEEE Press: Lisa Mizrahi,
Carrie Briggs, and Valerie Zaborski. They provided us with many helpful reviews, but
because all the reviewers except Charles Donaghey chose to remain anonymous, we can
only thank them collectively.

HlROMITSU KUMAMOTO
Kyoto, Japan
ERNEST J. HENLEY
Houston, Texas