Sensitivity analysis on the accident rate of a plant equipped with a single protective channel by generalized perturbation methods

In this paper we discuss the application of the GPT methodology to a reliability engineering problem which is of great practical interest: that of the analysis on the influence of the demand rate of the accident rate of a process plant equipped with a single protective channel. This problem has been solved in the literature by traditional methods; that is, for each demand rate value the system of differential equations which governs the system behavior (derived from a Markovian reliability model) is solved, and the resulting points are employed to generate the desired curve. This sensitivity analysis has been performed in this paper by means of a GPT approach in order to show how it could simplify the calculations. Sensitivity studies were performed on the repair efficiency and the demand rate, then on the repair rate and repair efficiency and, finally, on the demand rate and repair rate. GPT results of third order approximations were well in agreement with direct calculations. The relevance of the GPT approach is discussed in the context of redundant protective channels