SwRI: Risk Assessment Services: environmental risk, operational and infrastructure safety, oil and gas exploration and production, geotechnical instability risk, slope, tunnel

Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) pioneered the art of probabilistic risk assessment of complex systems nearly 20 years ago. The probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) is a quantitative technique for integrating diverse events, processes, and phenomena to evaluate system hazards. Risk assessment services at SwRI include

• Environmental risk

• Operational and infrastructure safety

• Oil and Gas exploration and production

• Geotechnical instability risk (e.g., slope, tunnel)

SwRI scientists and engineers develop risk assessment models that involve three major steps: scenario analysis, development of abstracted models, and integration of abstracted models into a self-consistent and coherent system model. Once the system model is developed, staff obtain performance estimates and execute calculations to obtain risk insights. At this stage, comparison is made with regulatory objectives. Process-level experts determine if technical bases gathered through analyses, literature surveys, and field investigations are sufficient. Then they pass information to the risk assessors. If the technical bases are not sufficient, they gather additional site-specific data and refine the model. The risk analysts continue the entire process iteratively until sufficient technical basis is achieved.

Using a risk-informed, performance-based approach, SwRI staff

• Quantify risk and provide defense in depth

• Integrate available site and engineering information

• Identify risk factors driving a system's performance

• Develop insight for the nature and significance of potential risks

• Identify alternative models for system behavior

• Design system features to provide improved confidence

	SwRI engineers develop and use PC- and workstation-probabilistic analysis tools to conduct performance assessment of nuclear waste repositories. Shown here is the platform-independent user-friendly graphical user interface to define and visualize data and results.

To support decision-making in the presence of significant uncertainty, SwRI brings innovative engineering solutions to complex risk assessment problems. SwRI rapidly pulls together multidisciplinary teams with expertise in

• Natural hazard assessments

• Probabilistic safety assessments

• Performance assessments

• Detailed and abstracted process modeling (conceptual and mathematical) to support risk assessments

• Application-oriented generic and tailored (e.g., site-specific) system software development

• Risk estimates, including effects of very rare events

• Statistical data analysis

• Uncertainty and sensitivity analyses

• Software and data quality assurance

SwRI has successfully applied its extensive experience in conducting risk assessments to diverse projects, including estimates of:

• Risk of aircraft crash into facilities

• Seismic risk (soil-structure interactions)

• Risk from radioactive waste disposal (national and international)

  • Development of dose standards

  • Review of safety cases

• Risk associated with facility decommissioning

• Risk from in situ containment and burial of wastes incidental to reprocessing

SwRI can also assist clients in simplifying complex risk assessment information for use in public outreach.

For more information about the risk assessment capabilities of SwRI or how you can contract with SwRI, please contact Dr. Sitakanta Mohanty at smohanty@swri.org or (210) 522-5185.