Choosing Safety: A Guide to Using Probabilistic Risk Assessment and Decision Analysis in Complex, High-Consequence Systems (Rff Press) - Hardcover

Frank, Michael V.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 193311553X ISBN 13: 9781933115535

Publisher: Routledge, 2008

Synopsis

The technological age has seen a number of catastrophic and preventable failures -- from buildings and bridges to space and launch vehicles, from chemical factories to nuclear power plants, from ships to airplanes, and from trains to automobiles. Often the root cause can be traced to design and engineering that did not appropriately consider safety as a factor. The ideas, methods, and case studies of this book are at the nexus of probabilistic risk assessment and decision analysis. This book melds these two technologies into a method of incorporating safety into a system or product from the beginning of its development.

Choosing Safety is the first book to bring together probabilistic risk assessment and decision analysis using real case studies. By virtue of more than a dozen practical examples from the author's experience in nuclear power, aerospace, and other potentially hazardous industries, the book focuses on methods for making logical decisions about complex engineered systems and products in which safety is a key factor in design -- and where failure can cause great harm, injury, or death. In a nutshell, it shows when, where, and how probabilistic risk assessment fits into decision analysis. This book provides the needed guidance and formal procedures to include safety in project decisions.

About this title

Review

"Engaging and fascinating real-world case studies... Important material of great interest to many audiences." --Tony Cox, Cox Associates

About the Author

Michael V. Frank holds a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from University of California, Los Angeles. He has had decades of experience as a consultant in probabilistic risk assessment, decision analysis, and hazard analysis for both private industry and government, for such projects as nuclear reactors, aerospace systems, consumer products, nuclear fuel fabrication, and nuclear waste disposal.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 193311553X
• ISBN 13: 9781933115535
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 232