An Introduction to The Domino Effects in

Process Industries

Arfaat Bashir

he Domino Effects

Evolution of the definitions:

Third report of
the Advisory
Committee on
Major
Hazards (HSE,
1984)

The effects of major accidents on other plants on the site or

nearby sites.

Lees (1996)

An event at one unit that causes a further event at another unit

Khan and Abbasi

(1998)

A chain of accidents or situations when a

fire/explosion/missile/toxic load generated by an accident in one
unit in an industry causes secondary and higher order accidents
in other units.

Delvosalle (1998)

A cascade of accidents (domino events) in which the

consequences of a previous accident are increased by the
following one(s), spatially as well as temporally, leading to a
major accident.

Vallee et al.
(2002)

An accidental phenomenon affecting one or more installations in

an establishment which can cause an accidental phenomenon in
an adjacent establishment, leading to a general increase in
consequences.

Lees (2005)

A factor to take account of the hazard that can occur if leakage

of a hazardous material can lead to the escalation of the
incident, e.g. a small leak which catches fire and damages by
flame impingement a larger pipe or vessel with subsequent
spillage of a large inventory of hazardous

he Domino Effects

Elements :
1. Primary scenario: An accident scenario that starts a domino
effect propagating and escalating to other process or storage units,
triggering one or several secondary accident scenarios.
2. Secondary scenario: An accident scenario caused by the
impact of an escalation vector generated by a primary accident
scenario.
3. Propagation: In case of a spatial domino effect, the propagation
indicates the involvement of other units or equipment items, present
at different positions with respect to that of the primary accident.
In case of a temporally domino effect, there is propagation within
the same unit or equipment item.
4. Escalation: The intensification of the overall consequences of an
undesired event.

he Domino Effects

Propagation Scenarios
Simple propagation: one-to-one
correspondence, that is, a single
primary scenario triggering a
single secondary scenario.
Multilevel domino chain: A
first accident scenario triggers a
second accident scenario, the
second accident scenario
triggers a third accident
scenario, and so on.
Multilevel propagation:
Primary accident resulted in
several simultaneous
secondary scenarios triggered
by the first primary accident.
Secondary scenarios also

he Domino Effects

Escalation vectors

Escalation: The intensification of the overall consequences of an

undesired event.
Escalation is implicitly required in order to consider an accident
scenario as a domino accident.
Khan and Abbasi (1998), identified two main patterns for
propagation and escalation
Direct escalation: direct escalation is caused by the direct damage
of target units due to the effect of radiation, blast waves and
fragment projection.
Indirect escalation: Indirect escalation scenarios may be triggered
by the loss of control of units or plant sections due to the effect of
the primary scenario.
Direct escalation is by far the more likely and documented
mechanism leading to domino accidents, as evidenced from past

he Domino Effects

Most common triggering events and escalation

vectors
Physical Effects Responsible for Escalation in 100 Domino
Accidents
(Cozzani et al., 2005)
Escalation Vector
Primary
Scenario

Events

Heat
Radiation

Overpressure

Fragments

VCE

17

16

Mechanical
explosion

17

10

BLEVE

13

13

Fireball

Jet fire

Pool fire

44

44

Flash fire

he Domino Effects

Most frequent Domino

Sequences

Abdolhamidzade
h et al. (2011)
53% of 224
accidents
involved primary
plus secondary
events 47%
included a
tertiary or even
higher level
escalation
events.
Darbra et al.
(2010) analyzed
330 domino

he Domino Effects

Most frequent Domino

Sequences

(Darbra et al. 2010)

(52.4%) Explosion
(47.6%) Fire
The most frequent
final domino
sequences were:
Explosion > fire
(27.6%),
fire > explosion
(27.5%)
fire > fire (17.8%).

he Domino Effects

Approaches to domino effect

assessment

Identification of
primary Events

Assessment of the
source term

Domino accident is the result of a complex

Consequence
analysis

propagation and escalation process of a

primary event. Thus, the identification and
assessment of domino scenarios requires a
detailed analysis of the consequences of the
primary
structural

scenario
damage

and

of

caused

the
to

Identification of
possible
secondary targets

potential
secondary

targets and the evaluation of probability

Damage
assessment

Steps required for domino effect analysis

and intensity of secondary scenario.

he Domino Effects

Approaches to domino effect

assessment
A correspondence may be identified among three widely
used conventional approaches to hazard and risk
assessment and the corresponding level of detail required
for the assessment of domino scenarios.
1. Preliminary hazard analysis (PHA) is widely used in early
design phases and may be applied to understand the
possibility of escalation events.
2. Quantitative risk assessment (QRA) may be suitable to
understand the risk due to domino scenarios, to identify
hot spots or critical scenarios and regulatory purposes.
3. Distributed parameters modeling aimed at worst-case
accident or maximum credible accident analysis may be
carried out to assess the design basis or to obtain detailed

he Domino Effects

Preliminary analysis of domino hazard

In the PHA phase of safety assessment or when a
qualitative assessment of domino hazards is
required, the analysis of escalation may be carried
out on the basis of a simplified assessment of
primary scenarios, using threshold values for the
identification of escalation targets.
Requires that the primary events of interest are
identified and that the consequences of the final
outcomes of these primary scenarios are calculated.
Possibility of escalation may be provided comparing
the intensity of the escalation vector.

he Domino Effects
QUANTITATIVE RISK ASSESSMENT OF DOMINO SCENARIOS

Standard tool to analyze and compare the risk due to industrial

installations
The analysis of a complex plant is undertaken, a huge number of
possible

scenarios

need

to

be

considered.

It

has

been

demonstrated that if escalation is considered for n equipment

items, up to 2n different first-level domino scenarios are possible.
Thus, a suitable computational approach needs to be applied
A framework for the quantitative risk assessment of domino
scenarios was developed in several studies (Delvosalle, 1998;
Khan and Abbasi, 1998; Abdolhamidzadeh et al., 2010; Reniers et
al., 2005; Cozzani et al., 2005)

he Domino Effects

Tools for Assessment of

Domino Effects
DOMIFFECT (DOMIno eFFECT) Software; Khan and Abbasi (1998)
Computer-automated tool and the first software package specifically
dealing with domino effect risk assessment.
Outcomes help decision making toward strategies needed to prevent
domino accidents.
1. Whether domino effects are likely to occur in a given setting
2. What are the likely accident scenarios
3. What would be the likely impacts of the different scenarios.
Approach is based on deterministic and probabilistic models to forecast
the occurrence probability and damage potential of different domino
scenarios.
Deterministic models estimate the consequences of a wide range of
scenarios.
Probabilistic models assess the event frequencies in addition to damage
and domino probabilities.

he Domino Effects

DOMIFFECT sequential
steps (Khan and
Abbasi, 1998)
The backbone algorithm
for development of this
software is a conceptual
framework
called
domino effect analysis
(DEA) presented by
Khan and Abbasi (1998).
Later on, in order to
perform an automated
DEA, these authors have
Few modules are similar
developed DOMIFFECT.
to the modules in a
previously presented
software called
MAXCRED-II by Khan and
Abbasi in1997. The
Domino module

he Domino Effects
Domino Version of ARIPAR-GIS
Software

Risk Identification
Cozzani et al. (2006)
developed and added a
specific domino software
package to ARIPAR-GIS
software in order to boost
its capabilities and handle
domino QRA.
ARIPAR-GIS software was
developed in the
framework of the ARIPAR
project and is a risk
assessment tool.

Frequency
Calculation
Consequence
Assessment

Risk Recomposition

he Domino Effects
DomPrevPlanning (Reniers and
Dullaert, 2007).
A common restraint disadvantage of domino DSS is the
requirement both of numerous diverse input data and of
extensive user knowledge and expertise.
Reniers and Dullaert (2007) have developed a computer
automated tool called DomPrevPlanning which, by using
simple input data, generates a simple ranking of domino
sequences
as an output.
DomPrevPlanning
(Reniers and Dullaert, 2007).
Generates a simple ranking of domino sequences
as an output.
Uses a holistic approach
Determines the prioritization of domino sequence.

he Domino Effects

FREEDOM: Abdolhamidzadeh et al. (2010)

Based on the application of simulation techniques (Monte
Carlo Simulation) instead than on analytical formulations.
Often used when the model is highly complex, nonlinear, or
involves more than just a couple of uncertain parameters.
A detailed consequence assessment is necessary prior to
the application of the method for calculation of frequency of
primary events for each equipment and the escalation
probabilities.

An introduction to The Domino Effects in

Process Industries