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Elements of Process Safety

The four pillars and the twenty elements of risk based process safety can be designed and implemented at varying levels of rigor to optimize process safety management, performance, efficiency, and effectiveness.

Consistent Consequence Severity Estimation

Mar 21, 2010
Angela Summers
LOPA, as a semi-quantitative analysis, often provides inconsistent results. This can be due to physical differences between units but often it is due to team's perceptual differences. Initiating event frequency evaluation using guidance tables is more consistent than consequence evaluation where...

Managing Management of Change

Mar 21, 2010
Jack Chosnek
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...

Thermal Stability of Chemicals Based on Kinetics and Vessel Parameters

Mar 21, 2010
Amy Theis
Thermal stability of a chemical mixture or pure material can be evaluated using adiabatic calorimetry. Several calorimetry testing instruments and techniques will be used and compared for a comprehensive evaluation. Results from these tests can be used to determine kinetic parameters which can be...

Is It Really an Independent Protection Layer?

Mar 21, 2010
Arthur M. Dowell
Layer of Protection Analysis (LOPA) is a simplified chemical process risk assessment tool that is used to determine if sufficient independent protection layers are in place to meet an organization's risk tolerance criteria for a particular hazardous scenario. LOPA can determine how much additional...

Lifecycle Physical Hazards of Polystyrene Foam Board

Mar 21, 2010
Atsumi Miyake
Polymer Foam Boards have been widely used for individual home and general building, from roofs and/or walls down to foundation, for example. On the other hand, these Boards have significant physical hazards, because flammable blowing agent has come to be used, replacing nonflammable CFC chemicals...

Quantitative Risk Assessment Case Study for Organic Acid Processes

Mar 21, 2010
R. Wayne Garland
Acetic acid is not a chemical covered by the OSHA PSM regulation, as its flash point is above the 100 F threshold for flammables; however, it is by no means a non-hazardous chemical. Eastman Chemical Company has a large number of processes containing acetic acid and related organic acids, and as a...

HAZOP, LOPA, SIL: Be Careful What You Ask for!

Mar 21, 2010
Mike Broadribb
In recent years Process Safety Engineers have promoted the use of HAZOP to identify hazards and assess safeguards, followed by LOPA to identify if additional protection layers are necessary and, if they are to be provided using safety instrumented functions, how reliable the SIFs need to be...

Teaching Reactive Chemical Hazards to Chemical Engineers

AIChE Webinar
Mar 3, 2010
Daniel Crowl

This webinar presents an introduction to how industry handles reactive chemical hazards, and provides resource material to teach this subject in an existing course in chemical engineering.

Preparing for OSHA's Chemical NEP Inspections

CCPS Webinar
Oct 15, 2009
David Moore, Mark S. Dreux, Steve Arendt

This informative webinar provides an overview of OSHA's Chemical NEP, and outlines recommended proactive measures to prepare for Chemical NEP inspection.

Guidelines for Process Safety Metrics

October, 2009
Process safety metrics is a topic of frequent conversation within chemical industry associations. Guidelines for Process Safety Metrics provides basic information on process safety performance indicators, including a comprehensive list of metrics for measuring performance and examples as to how...

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