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April 2013 www.sname.org/sname/mt ( in review )REVIEWED BY DAVID A. BRESLIN Everyone agrees that risk is a very impor- tant subject. Given the ever-increasing complexity of modern sys- tems and operations, as well as the ever-increasing opportunities for loss of life and capital equipment, the topic of risk assessment and risk mitigation receives con- siderable attention. Most engineers claim to understand how to han- dle risk. Few really do. After all, the subject of risk is not typically covered in the cur- ricula of our engineering schools. Those engineers who do take the initiative to educate themselves often have a hard time nding a well-written textbook on risk that is not focused solely on nancial investments and markets. at is why this book is so very important for our community. In its simplest formulation, risk is the product of one, the consequence of an undesirable event, in terms of dollars lost, lives lost, or any other suitable me asure; and two, the probabil- ity of that event occurring during an appropriate measure of use, in terms of time, distance, cycles, and so forth. Although simple, the consistent and objective quantication of risk has often proved to be elusive among practitioners. One reason has been the diculty in gaining consensus on the correct measures of loss and, more often, on the asso- ciated probabilities of occurrence. is is exacerbated by the tension that naturally exists between two communities. One community, typically comprising designers, is charged with the responsibility of assessing risk. Since they are responsi- ble for assessing risk, they tend to be conservative, and often apply qualitative techniques when quantitative techniques are incomplete, unavailable, or just dont feel right.? e other community, typically comprising program managers, owners, and operators, is charged with the responsibility of mitigating any risk identied by the rst community. is second com- munity bears the brunt of any cost or schedule impacts, and therefore has an incentive to question the validity of risks iden- tied by the rst community. Whats to be done? At least from the standpoint of the design phase, Bercha gives us a unique gift in the form of his book in two parts. e rst part, Methods, comprises nine thoughtful chapters that present in a logical and systematic way the comprehensive his- tory, denitions, and theories associated with risk and hazard analysis; frequency and probability analysis; consequence assessment; and risk mitigation. Its presentation and con- tent are ironclad and very educational. Bercha lays out what amounts to a step-by-step procedure for assessing risk in the design phase. ese steps are the building blocks for meaning- ful assessments, the understanding of which is fundamental. e appeal of Berchas approach is that it is purely quanti- tative, relying on empirical data. A comprehensive fault tree, identifying each possible mode of failure, is prepared for each design. Any design can fail in a nite number of ways and for a nite number of reasons, each of which is identied within a fault tree. en frequency analysis is applied to each ele- ment of the fault tree, using historical failure data. e end result is an expected number of failures per year, per mile, per sortie, or any other applicable unit of measure. e second part of the book, Applications, comprises 15 chapters, each of which is a stand-alone, real-life case study, mostly drawn from the oil and gas industries, although the principles and procedures can be applied to any engineer- ing application, including maritime transportation. Each case study follows the procedure presented in the rst part of the book, Methods. When quantied risks are unaccept- ably high, each case study includes an appropriate redesign or mitigation. In addition, each case study has its own little twist, which is useful in demonstrating the robustness and exibility of Berchas step-by-step procedure. Rare it is that a technical book comes along with an opti- mal balance of theory, application, and relevance. Risk Analysis is one of those rare books, and should be mandatory reading for every designer, program manager, owner, and operator. MTDavid A. Breslin is a PE and a member of SNAME, teaches reliability engineer- ing and operations research for the United States Merchant Marine Academy, and is a marine engineer for the United States Navy. Risk, Pressure, and a Quest Risk Analysis: Methods & Applications By Frank G. Bercha PUBLISHED BY UNIVERSAL PUBLISHERS INC.