Evaluating the impact of maintenance strategies on the safety performance of a storage tank with multiple failure modes

Safety is crucial in process industries due to hazardous materials and complex systems. As an inevitable aspect in operations of process industries, maintenance significantly affects operational safety. Studies show that 44% of major accidents in the US and Europe were maintenance-related in the focused decade. Therefore, studying the impact of different maintenance actions on system safety is of great importance. In this study, the effect of maintenance actions from different maintenance strategies is studied on a methanol storage tank system. The system is modelled based on phenomenological analysis and simulated under the designed failure scenario with the consideration of uncertainty. Maintenance effects are assessed by comparing system behaviour before and after the intervention, followed by the comparison of a safety indicator related to flammability. The evaluation results facilitate selecting maintenance strategies that enhance process safety and reliability.