The role of situation awareness in accidents of large-scale technological systems

Naderpour, M; Nazir, S; Lu, J

The role of situation awareness in accidents of large-scale technological systems

Naderpour, M

Nazir, S Lu, J

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Publication Type:: Journal Article
Citation:: Process Safety and Environmental Protection, 2015, 97 pp. 13 - 24
Issue Date:: 2015-01-01

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Naderpour, M https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3549-3875	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Nazir, S	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Lu, J https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0690-4732	en_US
dc.date.available	2020-05-25T19:02:27Z
dc.date.issued	2015-01-01	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Process Safety and Environmental Protection, 2015, 97 pp. 13 - 24	en_US
dc.identifier.issn	0957-5820	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/36875
dc.description.abstract	© 2015 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. In the last two decades, several serious accidents at large-scale technological systems that have had grave consequences, such as that at Bhopal, have primarily been attributed to human error. However, further investigations have revealed that humans are not the primary cause of these accidents, but have inherited the problems and difficulties of working with complex systems created by engineers. The operators have to comprehend malfunctions in real time, respond quickly, and make rapid decisions to return operational units to normal conditions, but under these circumstances, the mental workload of operators rises sharply, and a mental workload that is too high increases the rate of error. Therefore, cognivitive human features such as situation awareness (SA) - one of the most important prerequisite for decision-making - should be considered and analyzed appropriately. This paper applys the SA Error Taxonomy methodology to analyze the role of SA in three different accidents: (1) A runaway chemical reaction at Institute, West Virginia killing two employees, injuring eight people, and requiring the evacuation of more than 40,000 residents adjacent to the facility, (2) The ignition of a vapor cloud at Bellwood, Illinois that killed one person, injured two employees, and caused significant business interruption, and (3) An explosion at Ontario, California injuring four workers and caused extensive damage to the facility. In addition, the paper presents certain requirements for cognitive operator support system development and operator training under abnormal situations to promote operators' SA in the process industry.	en_US
dc.relation	http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP140101366
dc.relation.ispartof	Process Safety and Environmental Protection	en_US
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.1016/j.psep.2015.06.002	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Strategic, Defence & Security Studies	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Chemical Engineering	en_US
dc.title	The role of situation awareness in accidents of large-scale technological systems	en_US
dc.type	Journal Article
utslib.citation.volume	97	en_US
utslib.for	080602 Computer-Human Interaction	en_US
utslib.for	0904 Chemical Engineering	en_US
utslib.for	0914 Resources Engineering and Extractive Metallurgy	en_US
utslib.for	0102 Applied Mathematics	en_US
utslib.for	0911 Maritime Engineering	en_US
pubs.embargo.period	Not known	en_US
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology/School of Information, Systems and Modelling
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Strength - CAI - Centre for Artificial Intelligence
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Strength - CAMGIS - Centre for Advanced Modelling and Geospatial lnformation Systems
utslib.copyright.status	open_access
pubs.publication-status	Published	en_US
pubs.volume	97	en_US

Abstract:

© 2015 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. In the last two decades, several serious accidents at large-scale technological systems that have had grave consequences, such as that at Bhopal, have primarily been attributed to human error. However, further investigations have revealed that humans are not the primary cause of these accidents, but have inherited the problems and difficulties of working with complex systems created by engineers. The operators have to comprehend malfunctions in real time, respond quickly, and make rapid decisions to return operational units to normal conditions, but under these circumstances, the mental workload of operators rises sharply, and a mental workload that is too high increases the rate of error. Therefore, cognivitive human features such as situation awareness (SA) - one of the most important prerequisite for decision-making - should be considered and analyzed appropriately. This paper applys the SA Error Taxonomy methodology to analyze the role of SA in three different accidents: (1) A runaway chemical reaction at Institute, West Virginia killing two employees, injuring eight people, and requiring the evacuation of more than 40,000 residents adjacent to the facility, (2) The ignition of a vapor cloud at Bellwood, Illinois that killed one person, injured two employees, and caused significant business interruption, and (3) An explosion at Ontario, California injuring four workers and caused extensive damage to the facility. In addition, the paper presents certain requirements for cognitive operator support system development and operator training under abnormal situations to promote operators' SA in the process industry.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/36875