A methodology for automatically generating risk scenarios is presented.Its main idea is to let the system model "express itself" through simulation.This is achieved by having the simulation model driven by an elaborated simulation engine,which:(i) manipulates the generation of branch points,i.e.event occurrence times;(ii) employs a depth-first systematic exploration strategy to cover all possible branch paths at each branch point.In addition,a backtracking technique,as an extension,is implemented to recover some missed risk scenarios.A widely discussed dynamic reliability example(a holdup tank) is used to aid in the explanation of and to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.
This paper presents a methodology for automatically generating risk scenarios for dynamic reliability applications in which some dynamic characteristics(e.g.,the order,timing and magnitude of events,the value of relevant process parameters and initial conditions) have a significant influence on the evolution of the system.The main idea of the methodology is:(i) making the system model "express itself" through simulation by having the model driven by an elaborated simulation engine;(ii) exploiting uniform design to pick out a small subset of representative design points from the space of relevant dynamic characteristics;(iii) for each selected design point,employing a depth-first systematic exploration strategy to cover all possible scenario branches at each branch point.A highly dynamic example adapted from the literature(a chemical batch reactor) is studied to test the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.
