Making Existing Process Plants Inherently Safer

Making process plants inherently safer has obvious advantages and is easiest to do when designing a new plant. Modification of existing plants to make them inherently safer can often be much more difficult and costly, including any costs due to lost production. However, an inherently safer design review of an existing plant can identify opportunities for improvements, can permit cost-benefit evaluations of the potential improvements, and can frequently permit improvements to be made during scheduled maintenance.

This paper will outline methods to conduct an inherently safer design review of an existing plant and will give several examples of successful modifications of existing plants, making them inherently safer.