A Methodology for Risk Assessment to Improve the Resilience and Sustainability of Critical Infrastructure With Case Studies From the United States Army

Abstract

Reliable performance of energy and water infrastructure is central to the mission readiness of the United States Army. These systems are vulnerable to coordinated attacks from an adversary as well as disruption from natural events. The objectives of this work were to investigate Army installations in North America, identify best practices for improving the resilience and sustainability of critical energy and water infrastructure, and develop a framework and methodology for analyzing the resilience of an installation under varying outage scenarios. This work was accomplished using a multi-layered decision process to identify unique case studies from the 117 active-duty domestic Army installations. A framework for analyzing and assessing the resilience of an installation was then developed to help inform stakeholders. Metered energy and water data from buildings across Fort Benning, GA were curated to inform the modeling framework, including a discrete-event simulation of the supply and demand for energy and water on the installation using ProModel. This simulation was used to study the scale of solutions required to address outage events of varying frequency, duration, and magnitude, the combination of which is described as the severity of outages at a given site. This project helps develop a framework to inform how installations might meet Army Directive 2020-03, which states that installations must be able to sustain mission requirements for a minimum of 14 days after a disruption has occurred.

Description

Keywords

Energy, Water, Resilience, Infrastructure

Citation

Blackwell, N, Evans, A, Lee, P, Panlasigui, C, Russell, D, Wells, K, McCarthy, S, McCoy, B, & Davidson, FT. "A Methodology for Risk Assessment to Improve the Resilience and Sustainability of Critical Infrastructure With Case Studies From the United States Army." Proceedings of the ASME 2021 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition. Volume 8A: Energy. Virtual, Online. November 1–5, 2021. V08AT08A056. ASME.