ABSTRACT
In a modern industrialized society the presence of man-made hazards is unavoid able. To control these hazards authorities, owners and designers are inclined to adopt the risk concept with a single-valued risk criterion. Single valued risk crite ria, however, are inadequate for comprehensive judgement of risk-bearing activities, techniques and technologies. Particularly in case of Low Probability/High Conse quence Risks, the consequences can not be described adequately in quantitative terms, not to mention the inadequacy of a single-valued acceptance criterion for judging these risks. For dependable protection of people an environment new stra tegies are required. In those new safety strategies emphasis will be on consequence management instead of risk management. For adequate consequence management concrete structures are considered dependable components. Concrete storage sys tems, designed with the aim to protect people and environment, can be realized in almost any size and shape. Extreme loading conditions, such as industrial fires, impact and blasts loads, can be designed for by choosing the right shape and dimen sions of the structure. In those cases, where most stringent tightness criteria have to be fulfilled, for example in the case of storage of hazardous wastes, conceptual thinking is required. In this conceptual thinking, which is closely related to scena rio thinking, storage systems are judged by their potential to prevent escalation of (industrial) accidents. When dealing with storage of hazardous wastes, conceptual thinking has led to system technology, which means that storage systems shall be inspectable, controllable, repairable and renewable without taking them out of ser vice. With system technology even the most stringent tightness criteria can be met in an almost deterministic way.
