Reliability Modelling of a High Integrity Pressure Protection System (HIPPS) Using the Multiple Beta-Factor Approach for Enhanced Safety in Oil and Gas
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.70112/ajeat-2026.15.1.4339Keywords:
High Integrity Pressure Protection Systems (HIPPS), Common-Cause Failures (CCFs), Multiple Beta-Factor (MBF), Fault Tree Analysis (FTA), Probability of Demand (PFD)Abstract
High Integrity Pressure Protection Systems (HIPPS) are essential for ensuring that oil and gas facilities comply with safety standards, making it crucial to use reliable estimation methods to determine their ability to handle high-pressure situations. Common-cause failures (CCFs) are often overstated in traditional reliability modelling methods, such as the single beta-factor (β) model, because they assume uniform dependency levels across subsystems. This work presents an improved modelling framework using the Multiple Beta-Factor (MBF) method combined with Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) for a more realistic representation of subsystem-specific CCF behaviour. Despite the expected drop in HIPPS reliability and the growth of PFD over time, the MBF model consistently produces lower PFD values than the traditional β-model. The improvement in PFD performance estimated by the MBF model is 20.5%, with a PFD of 0.62 at 100 hours, as opposed to 0.78 from the β-model. This MBF–FTA integration ensures a more balanced distribution of dependency parameters among sensors, actuators, and logic solvers. The model’s accuracy is well established through validation with RMSE and MAE. The outcomes indicate that MBF modelling can be used to provide a more accurate and conservative reliability assessment for HIPPS.
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