Abstract:The concept of risk chain is put forward, and a novel approach was proposed for assessing schedule risks. First, in order to find out the interrelationships among risks, the evaluation information provided by a panel of experts was analyzed by an objectifying process; secondly, a risk interaction network was established based on the identified interrelationships, and the method to divide a risk interaction network into some unattached risk chains was explained; thirdly, a formula was provided to assess the various risk chains, according to obtained parameters from a simulation process taking the information of project schedule and properties of risk chains into consideration. Finally, a numerical example was analyzed to illustrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed approach.