Modeling the Consequences of Accidents during the Process of Transferring Waste Thinner from the Paint Shop of an Automotive Industry using ALOHA Software

Aims: During the past decade, the application of engineering and managerial techniques for designing a variety of qualitative and quantitative risk assessment methods and modeling the consequences of accidents have had a great contribution to the promotion of safety in the industrial systems. The present study was conducted to identify and prioritize safety risks in one of the automotive industries. Risk management of the operation of transferring waste thinner from the paint shop represents a critical issue owing to special safety. Materials and Methods: One of the most important theories for the modeling of events is the bowtie analyzing method. Bowtie is a qualitative analyzing method which incorporates managerial system techniques and provides a highly accurate analysis in the form of fault and event trees. In the present study, the process of risk identification and management was carried out using the Bowtie analyzing method and the obtained results were applied to the structure of a bowtie graph and the consequence was modeled using ALOHA software. Results: In the study, the operation of transferring waste thinner from the paint shop of an automotive industry was examined. Possible safety risks that may happen during the loading and unloading operations of the waste thinners were detected using bowtie analyzing method and the modeling of fire at chemical tanker carrying thinner and also the modeling of BLEVE phenomenon was conducted. The results represent that the area, in which employees are stationed is at very high risk that in the event of a possible fire, the personnel will be quickly caught in fireballs caused by the burning of thinner. Conclusion: According to the results, it was found that one of the administrative units is positioned inappropriately and incorrectly in the vicinity of thinner loading station that in the case of nondisplacement of the mentioned unit and the incident of fire or explosion in the place of loading and unloading of thinner, undoubtedly there would be fire at the mentioned administrative unit.