Hybrid causal methodology and software platform for probabilistic risk assessment and safety monitoring of socio-technical systems

Abstract

This paper introduces an integrated framework and software platform for probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) and safety monitoring of complex socio-technical systems. An overview of the three-layer hybrid causal logic (HCL) modeling approach and corresponding algorithms, implemented in the Trilith software platform, are provided. The HCL approach enhances typical PRA methods by quantitatively including the influence of soft causal factors introduced by human and organizational aspects of a system. The framework allows different modeling techniques to be used for different aspects of the socio-technical system. The HCL approach combines the power of traditional event sequence diagram (ESD)event tree (ET) and fault tree (FT) techniques for modeling deterministic causal paths, with the flexibility of Bayesian belief networks for modeling non-deterministic causeeffect relationships among system elements (suitable for modeling human and organizational influences). Trilith enables analysts to construct HCL models and perform quantitative risk assessment and management of complex systems. The risk management capabilities included are HCL-based risk importance measures, hazard identification and ranking, precursor analysis, safety indicator monitoring, and root cause analysis. This paper describes the capabilities of the Trilith platform and power of the HCL algorithm by use of example risk models for a type of aviation accident (aircraft taking off from the wrong runway). © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.