Safety and Environmental Engineering Research

In recent years, the annual losses associated with the cost of accidents in the process industry has increased at an alarming rate. During the decade 1958-1967 for example, these losses amounted to $4.5 billion increasing to $14.4 billion during 1968 - 1977 and $21 billion for the decade 1978 -1987. Having persisted for so long, the indications are that these costs are set to increase. For example the Piper Alpha tragedy in 1989 resulted in loss of 167 lives with the costs exceeding $3.5 billion.

The Safety and Environmental Engineering Group's (SERG) research at UCL is primarily concerned with consequence risk analysis. This mainly involves mathematical modelling and computer simulation of the consequences associated with a number of different types of major accidents associated with the oil and gas industries. Some of the simulations produced by the SERG are routinely used in industry.

The following are examples of some of the current and recently completed projects.