An integrated quantitative risk analysis method for natural gas pipeline network

Natural gas industry is developing rapidly, and its accidents are threatening the urban safety. Risk management through quantitative assessment has become an important way to improve the safety performance of the natural gas supply system. In this paper, an integrated quantitative risk analysis method for natural gas pipeline network is proposed. This method is composed of the probability assessment of accidents, the analysis of consequences and the evaluation of risk. It is noteworthy that the consequences analyzed here include those of the outside and inside gas pipelines. The analysis of consequences of the outside pipelines focuses on the individual risk and societal risk caused by different accidents, while those of the inside pipelines concerns about the risk of the economic loss because of the pressure re-distribution. Risk of a sample urban gas pipeline network is analyzed to demonstrate the presented method. The results show that this presented integrated quantitative risk analysis method for natural gas pipeline network can be used in practical application.