Manage Risks

Chevron and Air Products have both leveraged an initiative by the Swan Associates test shop that ensures compatibility of their internal software used to manage their operations with the CCPS PERD software, designed to support value added analysis. The work process involves “as found” proof test...

The advent of various safety standards like ANSI /ISA 84, IEC 61511, API 14C, API 580 / 581, SAE JA1011, IEC 60330 and PSM guidelines has been a good impetus in improving the availability and reliability of safety systems and processes with an objective to meet the requirements defined by OSHA, EPA...

Equipment reliability is essential to the safe operation of process equipment. The health of process equipment must be analyzed by competent personnel using proper methods to identify current damage and predict anticipated life. The use of proper testing and inspection methods is basic to...

This paper presents approaches to provide a safer operating plant by extending mechanical integrity to all process equipment using a risk-based approach to better focus resources. Risk-based approaches for inspection and testing of fixed equipment for mechanical integrity (API 580/581) and for the...

The stability for a safety valve was investigated by experiments and analysis. It was found that the dynamic instability was caused by the interaction effect between the pressure wave propagation through the inlet pipe and the valve disc motion. This dynamic instability is mitigated by the...

In a companion paper, root cause of failure analysis (RCA) was used to estimate the times to failure of a set of spring operated pressure relief valves (SORV) that were found in the fail-to-open (FTO) condition upon proof test. We now use these estimated times to failure to estimate the failure...

A method for adjusting spring operated pressure relief valve (SORV) inspection intervals is presented based on hazard identification, financial risk assessment, fluid service, and comparison of the life-cycle testing costs. Intuitively, longer intervals between maintenance and proof testing should...

The Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) has designated MOC as one of the areas where metrics need to be developed. One of the issues that CCPS is concerned about is the quality of the MOCs as much as the quantity of those that have not been completed. One of the reasons is that people tend to...

Steam generation is an integral part of most chemical process plants; however, the steam plant often is or can be overlooked in the area of hazard analysis. The reasons for this oversight are obvious: steam generation is considered to be an old and well understood process, and steam boiler systems...

Many companies have made great strides in change management systems since OSHA's Process Safety Management Standard 29 CFR 1910.119 was first promulgated in 1992. This standard required “implementation of written procedures to manage changes… that affect a covered process”i. Although significant...