UNIT IV

SAFETY, RESPONSIBILITIES
AND RIGHTS
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SAFETY, RESPONSIBILITIES AND RIGHTS

 Safety and risk - assessment of safety and risk - risk benefit analysis and
reducing risk - the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl case studies.
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What would you do?
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Engineer’s Concern for Safety

 We demand safe products (Primary demand of the Society)

...but we have to pay for safety (important for the public to
know this)
 What may be safe enough for you, may not be for others
Example: Investing in Stock Market
 Absolute safety is neither attainable nor affordable
Example: San Francisco earthquake...
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SAFETY…

 Safety, definitions:
– “A thing is safe if, were its risks fully known, those risks would be judged
acceptable by a reasonable person in light of their settled value principles”
Safety is relative!
 We buy an ill-designed Iron box in a sale -> Underestimating risk
 We judge fluoride in water can kill lots of people -> Overestimating risk
 We hire a taxi, without thinking about its safety -> Not estimating risk
How does a judge pass a judgement on safety in these 3 cases? ….So, this
definition won't do in real life.
 – “A thing is safe (to a certain degree) with respect to a given person or
group at a given time if, were they fully aware of its risks they would judge
those risks to be acceptable (to a certain degree). ” -Mike Martin and
Roland Schinzinger What is “degree”?
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RISK…

….”A risk is the potential that something unwanted and harmful may occur”
 We take a risk when we undertake something or use a product that is not safe.
 Risk in technology could include dangers of
 bodily harm,
 economic loss,
 environmental degradation.
 Risks always exist. But true safety never exists, except in hypothetical situations. So,
Safety is 'acceptable risk'.
 “Experimental” risks associated with introducing new technology (“social
experimentation”)
Example: Toyota Prius/deaf people problem unforeseen?, exposes environment-safety
trade-off
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Acceptability of Risk

Voluntary risk and Control

 Willingness to be subjected to risk:
-For example, John and Ann Smith enjoy riding motorcycles over rough ground for amusement. They
take voluntary risk, part of being engaged in such a potentially dangerous sport.
 People don’t have as much of a problem with subjecting themselves to risks
 – Much less willing to involuntarily be subjected to risks
Are risks on-the-job voluntary? What about in a manufacturing job?
– Could quit! But is this always possible?
– If piece-work-based, will workers behave less safely?
Safety complaints from on-the-job should always be listened to..
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Lessons for the Engineer

Problems with the public’s conception of safety:

 – Over-optimistic with regard to familiar products that have not hurt them
before and that they have control over (Underestimating the risk)
 – Over-pessimism when accidents kill or claim large numbers or harm those
we know (e.g., aircraft crashes) (Overestimating the risk)
 – Indifference to risk people do not think of the risk factor at all. They simply
do not make judgements on risks. Statistically speaking, the real risk may
be quite small (e.g. Taking selfies near dangerous locations, Venturing into
Beach)
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Design Considerations, Risk

Principles:
 Absolute safety is not attainable
 Improvements in safety often cost $$
 Products that are not safe incur secondary costs
 Loss of customer goodwill and/or customers
 Warranty expenses
 Litigation
 Business failure? Loss of your professional employees? Bad climate/hiring
potential?
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Design principle, risk/trade-offs

How safe should we make a product?

• As the product is in the process of being designed
and manufactured, any safety or risk-avoidance
considerations are just informed guesses or
probabilities of what can happen.
• Past experience is a good guide while designing
something for safety
• Design Reviews by internal teams followed by a
design assessment for safety by external consultants
is a viable procedure to avoid unsafe products and
the resulting financial liabilities. P = primary cost of a product (including safety
measures)
S = secondary cost
There are tradeoffs...
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Knowledge of Risk

 Safety issues, even for standard products, are often not well understood
– Information is often not shared between industries, or even engineers in an
organization
– Always new application of old technology so we do not know what our products
will encounter.
 Uncertainties in design cause risk
 Engineers use “safety factors” in design
Examples:
– Uncertainties in materials (e.g., what does the silver or gold band on a resistor mean?).
Supplier’s data based on statistical averages? What is the underlying probability density
function?
– Designs that do well under static loads often do not do well under dynamic loads
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Design Principle: Safe if Capability
Exceeds Duty

Degree of safety proposed to be attained varies with

the product, perception and cost of risk involved.
 An aircraft is designed with a much greater level
of safety than an automobile.
 A manned space vehicle has much more safety
features than unmanned vehicle because cost of
lives is much higher than the cost of material
things like the spacecraft.
 In addition, more standby systems are designed
and incorporated to increase safety.
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SAFETY AND RISK

 Safety was defined as the risk that is known and judged as acceptable.
 But, risk is a potential that something unwanted and harmful may occur.
 It is the result of an unsafe situation, sometimes unanticipated, during its use.
 Probability of safety = 1 – Probability of risk
 Risk = Probability of occurrence × Consequence in magnitude
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SAFETY AND RISK

 Different methods are available to determine the risk (testing for safety)
1. Testing on the functions of the safety-system components.
2. destructive testing: In this approach, testing is done till the component fails.
It is too expensive, but very realistic and useful.
3. Prototype testing: In this approach, the testing is done on a proportional
scale model with all vital components fixed in the system. Dimensional
analysis could be used to project the results at the actual conditions.
4. Simulation testing: With the help of computer, the simulations are done.
The safe boundary may be obtained. The effects of some controlled input
variables on the outcomes can be predicted in a better way.
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Do we know capability and duty?
 No, not precisely, we must determine (estimate) it!
Testing for safety
– Design tests with the above comments in mind
– Be careful to do accurate tests, be honest in trying to find the problem
– Sometimes it may be good to get an outsider’s perspective
– Be careful with the results of other’s tests - don’t just blindly trust them when it comes to safety
 Testing cannot always be performed
– Failures would be catastrophic
– Tests are too expensive
What do to in these cases?
– Scenario analysis
– Fault tree analysis
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Risk-Benefit Analysis

– Is a product worth the risks connected with its use?

– What are the benefits? To whom?
– Do they outweigh the risks? To whom? Environmental impact?
 “Under what conditions, if any, is someone in society entitled to impose a risk on someone
else on behalf of a supposed benefit to yet others?”
 How do you place value in $$ on a human life?? Recall cost-benefit analysis. Human
rights/dignity/respect?
 Engineers often supply facts on risk. Caution!
Example: Operator error and negligence are most often not the principle causes of
accidents - often unsafe conditions that are incorrectly assessed
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Making a product safe does not
automatically increase costs

 Safety should be built into the original design

 Warnings are often not adequate, cannot fall back on
insurance!
 Must “embed” safety; requires competence, broad
perspective!
• Examples: Improved safety
– Magnetic door catch on a refrigerator (safety for less
money!)
– Ground-fault interrupter (but costs some?)
– Motor reverse circuit (no cost)
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Fail-Safe and Safe-Exit

 In the study of safety, the ‘safe exit’ principles are recommended.

 The conditions referred to as ‘safe exit’ are:
 The product, when it fails, should fail safely
 The product, when it fails, can be abandoned safely (it does not harm
others by explosion or radiation)
 The user can safely escape the product (e.g., ships need sufficient number
of life boats for all passengers and crew; multi-storeyed buildings need
usable fire escapes)
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Types of Risk

 Acceptable Risk

 Voluntary risk and Control

 JOB RELATED RISKS

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Acceptable Risk

 Acceptable risk refers to the level of human and property injury or loss from an
industrial process that is considered to be tolerable by an individual, household,
group, organization, community, region, state, or nation in view of the social,
political, and economic cost-benefit analysis.
Example: For instance, the risk of flooding can be accepted once every 500
years but it is unacceptable in every ten years.
 It is management's responsibility to set their company's level of risk. As a security
professional, it is your responsibility to work with management and help them
understand what it means to define an acceptable level of risk.
 Each company has its own acceptable risk level, which is derived from its legal
and regulatory compliance responsibilities.
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Acceptable Risk vs Unacceptable Risk
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Voluntary risk

 A person is said to take ‘VOLUNTARY RISK’ when he is subjected to risk by either

his own actions or action taken by others volunteers to take that risk without any
apprehension.
Example: Riding over rough ground for amusement
 Voluntary risks have to do with lifestyle choices.
 They are the risks that people take knowing that they may have consequences.
These risks include smoking tobacco, driving a car, skydiving, and climbing a
ladder.
 Involuntary risks are risks that people take either not knowing that they are at risk,
or they are unable to control the fact that they are at risk, such as second hand
smoke. These risks often include environmental hazards such as lightning,
tsunamis, and tornadoes etc.
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Voluntary risk vs Involuntary risk
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JOB RELATED RISKS

 Many workers are taking risks in their jobs in their stride like being exposed to
asbestos.
 Exposure to risks on a job is in one sense of voluntary nature since one can always
refuse to submit to the work or may have control over how the job is done.
 But generally workers have no choice other than what they are told to do since
they want to stick to the only job available to them.
 But they are not generally informed about the exposure to toxic substances and
other dangers which are not readily seen, smelt, heard or otherwise sensed.
 Occupational health and safety regulations and unions can have a better say in
correcting these situations but still things are far below expected safety standards.
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ASSESSMENT OF SAFETY AND RISK

 Absolute safety is never possible to attain and safety can

be improved in an engineering product only with an
increase in cost.
 On the other hand, unsafe products increase secondary
costs to the producer beyond the primary (production)
costs, like warranty costs loss of goodwill, loss of customers,
legal action costs, downtime costs in manufacturing, etc.
 Figure indicates that P- Primary costs are high for a highly
safe (low risk) product and S- Secondary costs are high for a
highly risky (low safe) product.
 It should now be clear that ‘safety comes with a price’ only.
P = primary cost of a product (including safety
measures)
S = secondary cost
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Uncertainties encountered in design
process

 Coordination problems.
 Contractor-caused delays.
 Uncertainties regarding materials and skills required in the manufacturing
 Changing economic realities.
 Unfamiliar environmental conditions like very low temperature
 A decision on maximizing profit or maximizing the return on investment.
 Uncertainties about applications like dynamic loading instead of static loading,
vibrations, wind speeds.
 The available standard data on items like steel, resistors, insulators, optical glass,
etc are based on statistical averages only.
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What is the goal of risk assessment?

 Recent occurrences of large scale accidents in which many lives were lost or in
which great damage was caused to the environment has lead to more attention
being paid to safety within industrial plants or installations.
 As a result of this attention, risk analysis techniques have come to play an ever-
increasing role.
 Risk reduction can take place at different levels viz by implementing the inherent
safety provisions during the designing stage, applying safety measures, preventing or
limiting damage, providing safety zones around industrial plants and by emergency
planning.
 Each of these applications demands a specific approach for the risk analysis
 The aim of the risk assessment process is to remove a hazard or reduce the level of its
risk by adding precautions or control measures, as necessary. By doing so, you have
created a safer and healthier workplace.
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Testing strategies for safety (Risk Analysis)

Risk analysis is used for the assessment of the hazards associated with an industrial or
commercial activity and can be summarized by 3 questions given below:
 What can go wrong? – Hazard Identification
 What are the effects and consequences?- consequence Analysis
 How often it will happen? - Probability estimation
Several methods are adopted for testing of safety of a product/project:
 Using the past experience in checking the design and performance.
 Prototype testing. Here the one product tested may not be representative of the
population of products.
 Tests simulated under approximately actual conditions to know the performance
flaws on safety
 Routine quality assurance tests on production runs.
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Testing strategies for safety

 The above testing procedures are not always carried out properly. Hence we
cannot trust these testing procedures uncritically.
 Some tests are also destructive and obviously it is impossible to do destructive
testing and improve safety.
 In such cases, analytical methods could be applied in testing for safety
 Scenario Analysis (Event -> Consequences)
 Failure Modes & Effects Analysis (Failure modes of each component)
 Fault Tree Analysis (System Failure -> Possible Causes at component level)
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Example of Testing for safety

 Failure modes and effect analysis (FMEA) :

This approach systematically examines the failure modes of each
component, without however, focusing on relationships among the
elements of a complex system.
 Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) :
 The failure (undesirable event) is initially defined, and the events (causal relationships)
leading to that failure are identified at different components level.
 The reverse of the fault-tree analysis is ‘event –tree analysis’.
 This method can combine hardware failures and human failures .
 This method most effectively illustrates the disciplined approach required
to capture as much as possible of everything that affects proper functioning and
safety of a complex system.
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Worksheet for Design/Process FMEA
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Fault Tree Analysis

Consider the failure of the steam

flow in a thermal station. The water
is pumped from a big reservoir
nearby.
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Risk Benefit Analysis
 Risk Benefit Analysis (RBA) is an approach to risk assessment that focuses not just on the risks of
the activity, but on the benefits of the activity.
 Risk – benefit analysis is analysis that seeks to quantify the risk and benefits and hence their ratio.
 Exposure to personal risk is recognized as a normal aspect of everyday life.
A certain level of risk in our lives is accepted as necessary to achieve certain
benefits.
 Risk is an essential element in the development of children’s physical, emotional and intellectual
development.
 Risk isn’t just about physical actions –for example climbing a tree or skateboarding. It’s also
about taking intellectual risks –trying anything for the first time, testing new ideas,
accepting other people’s opinions (even if you don’t agree with them).
 For example, driving an automobile is a risk most people take daily.
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Example-Pond dipping

 Pond dipping is a fun and simple way for children to

explore an aquatic habitat.
 Children will be able to observe a diversity of
different creatures from leeches to dragonfly nymphs
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RISK BENEFIT ASSESSMENT-Example
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Example-Nuclear Reactor Risk Assessment
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Reducing risk (Improving Safety)

 Application of Inherent safety concepts in design (e,g. LPG cylinder with frame to
protect the valve while handling and facilitate cryogenic storage
 Use redundancy principle in the instrument protection/Design
 Periodical monitoring (inspection) and testing of safety system to ensure reliability.
E.g., Fire extinguishers, Earth systems in electric circuits are checked periodically
 Issue of operational manuals, training of the operating personal and regular
audits to ensure that the procedures are well adopted and followed.
 Development of well designed emergency evacuation plans and regular
rehearsals to ensure preparedness in case of emergency.
 In case of unavoidable risks like calamities, Govt. regulatory bodies can give
safety instructions
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Example(Fire accident)
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Example(Flooding)-Before Flooding
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Example(Flooding)-During Flooding