Structural Characterization of Industrial Facilities in the Framework of Seismic Risk Analysis

Natural catastrophic events may affect the integrity of industrial structures (equipment, auxiliary system, instrumentation, structural support, utilities). As a consequence, loss of energy or mass or, more generally, both mass and energy from the containment system is likely to occur. If industrial facilities store large amount of hazardous materials, accidental scenarios as fire, explosion, or toxic dispersion may be triggered, thus possibly involving working people within the installation and/or population living in the close surrounding or in the urban area where the industrial installation is located. In this framework, increased knowledge and development of simplified “engineering” tools for the analysis of industrial accidental scenarios in seismic areas are needed. To this aim principal classes of equipment may be sketched as those which can produce relevant issues if earthquake hits an industrial installation. In particular a detailed study on these classes of equipments has been developed to obtain a design and construction standardization in the framework of seismic risk analysis.