Societal risk acceptance criteria for pressure pipelines in China

When a pressure pipeline accident occurs in the vicinity of people, it may cause a large number of injuries and deaths. Risk management has become one of the most effective means of preventing pressure pipeline accidents. However, there are no clearly proposed pipeline risk acceptance criteria in China. To improve the level of safety supervision and strengthen the decision-making ability of enterprises and governments at all levels, this paper attempted to establish societal risk acceptance criteria for pressure pipelines in China. FN-curves were used as the indicator of societal risk. A large amount of historical accident data was analyzed via linear regression. Then, the role of interval estimation derived from the regression equation was utilized in combination with the ALARP principle to form the acceptable criteria for societal risk. Graphical results were disclosed and showed that the upper limits of tolerable risk and broadly acceptable risk respectively started from about 10^−4.6/a and 10^−5.3/a and declined with a slope of 1.47. The approach was reasonable in that it accurately reflected the characteristics and rules of pressure pipeline accidents in China. Simultaneously, to ensure stability and continuous improvement, the use and applicability of societal risk acceptance criteria were discussed from both dynamic and regional factors based on the Chinese environment for making related suggestions.