A novel methodology for quantifying the impact of dependent competing failure-induced performance degradation of fireproofing coatings on domino effect risk

Safety barrier performance assessment is essential for identifying the risks and consequences of domino accidents. While safety barriers protect equipment, their performance interacts with and is affected by dynamic internal and external conditions. Current conventional performance assessment approaches generally focus on static measures or a single failure mode, which are inadequate for dynamically describing and quantifying performance degradation, leading to an error in estimating risks and consequences. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel methodology for quantifying the impact of dependent competing failure-induced performance degradation of fireproofing coatings on domino effect risk. Specifically, it evaluates the performance degradation caused by dependent competing failure processes involving natural aging and fire accidents from a reliability perspective. The proposed methodology includes four primary steps: performance characterization of fireproofing coatings, reliability model development, identification of the domino effect evolution process considering barrier performance, and probabilistic assessment of failure scenarios. A case study demonstrates the implementation of the proposed methodology, showing the aggravating effect on risks and consequences arising from performance degradation due to dependent competing failure processes, including failure time, escalation probability, and occurrence frequency of expected/unexpected scenarios. Additionally, the proposed methodology dynamically and efficiently describes and quantifies the performance degradation, thereby making a guarantee for implementing effectively maintenance and replacement measures in advance to enhance barrier performance.