Application of Framework for Risk Assessment in Ultrasonic Testing (UT) of Critical Parts – A Case Study

This paper presents the application of a framework for identifying risks in the Ultrasonic Testing of critical parts. This topic is significant because failing to inspect critical parts with UT in the industry correctly may lead to operational failure. Catastrophic accidents can happen if risks are not identified and responses are not provided. In the European Congress for Reliability and Safety held in 2022 in Dublin, a framework proposal was presented based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Bayesian Belief Network (BBN). This study complements the proposal presented in ESREL 2022, focusing on applying the framework. As a methodological approach, a survey was prepared to elicit experts' probabilities. These were uploaded into BBN software to combine the risk factors contributing to an inspection failure. AHP was used to define to prioritize the impact of risk categories. The combination of probability and impact identified the most significant risk categories. As a result, the method revealed the most significant risk factors in UT. The conclusion is that the model proved adequate to reduce the risk of hardware failure significantly. As a contribution, the proposed method is an invaluable source of information for safety engineers and decision-makers in companies. It can be generalized to other industries and fields of work that wear UT.

Keywords: Risk assessment, Bayesian belief network, Analytic hierarchy process, Critical parts, Ultrasonic testing.

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