Uncertainties on risk analysis : the consequence assessment in an hydrogen refuelling station

The paper concerns the problem of uncertainty associated to risk analysis of complex technological systems; this problem is not easy to resolve and manage. This is because such uncertainty has never been simple to quantify and, despite several innovative techniques able to properly manage uncertainties are available, none of these methodologies is integrated on the risk analysis in order to evaluate the error propagation. Also the itself risk analysis is not a precisely defined procedure but rather a complicated process of several parts and, moreover, each part is characterized by its own uncertainty. Several studies highlighted as the phases which mainly contribute to the overall uncertainty of a risk analysis are consequence and vulnerability studies. In order to provide a signifying approach to the problem, the working team has decided to focus their attention on a very important target for population safety: the hydrogen refuelling station for automotive.