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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.

Process Safety Performance Tool

Mar 13, 2011
Clarissa Sossmeier da Silva, Pablo Ricardo Barrera
The process safety management in a petrochemical company is a key factor for sustainability, since intends to prevent or minimize the consequences of a major accident due to a release of flammable, combustible, or toxic substance from a process. Maintaining and improving a process safety management...

Safety Studies for Reformatsky Chemistry In a Meso-Scale Continuous Process System

Mar 13, 2011
Gabriel Loh
The production of fine chemicals and pharmaceuticals has been traditionally achieved via batch processes. More recently, there has been interest in using multiscale (meso- and micro-) reactors for the production of these fine chemicals and pharmaceuticals. These efforts in process intensification...

Using LOPA for Sil Assignment: A Tale of Two Plants

Mar 13, 2011
Michael S. Schmidt
Two plants operated by the same company have ?identical? ammonium nitrate (AN) solution pump installations. Yet the LOPA teams concluded that the safety instrumented functions to protect those pumps needed different safety integrity levels (SILs). Despite the similarity of the installations, the...

Incident Investigation – Addressing the Worst That Could Have Happened

Mar 13, 2011
Samuel A. Rodgers
Incident Investigation techniques typically start with a detailed description of the actual consequence and work backward toward the root causes. A lot of time is spent to qualify and quantify the actual consequence so as to appropriately apply resources to prevent recurrence. A frequent outcome of...

Kinetic Modeling of the Reactions Involved in the T2 Explosion

Mar 13, 2011
Ronald J. Willey
The runaway reaction at the chemical preparation facility called T2 laboratories in Jacksonville, Florida on December 19, 2007 is analyzed. The approached involved estimating kinetic parameters based on temperature time traces presented in the CSB final report for ARSST (Advance Reactive System...

Inherently Safer Reactor Design for Complex Reactions Based On Calorimetry Studies

Mar 13, 2011
Alba Lucia Pineda
A number of reactive processes of the agrochemical, fine-chemicals and pharmaceutical industries involve thermally unstable and/or toxic reactants, products or intermediates, for which the chemistry, thermochemistry and thermodynamic properties are barely known. They frequently employ multipurpose...

Human Performance Training

Mar 13, 2011
Don D. Nguyen
Operator competency has been a major challenge for the petrochemical and refining industry for decades. In recent times, human factors are believed to be a consistent contributing cause for a lot of incidents. Current schemes used to determine an operator's competency are subjective and somewhat...

On the Potential of Mitigating Vapour Cloud Explosions Using Flame Inhibitors

Mar 13, 2011
Kees Van Wingerden
Very few measures are taken to mitigate the possible consequences of vapour cloud explosions. The main attention is given to prediction of the consequences, which is used to consider strengthening structurally or re-locate occupied buildings such as control rooms. However little is undertaken to...

Quantitative Models for Assessing MOC Performance

Mar 13, 2011
Rainer Hoff
The safety community, bolstered by the PSM regulations, has emphasized the importance of proper management of change to ensure safe, reliable and economic operation of chemical plants and refineries. Yet, at many sites, the MOC process is often harshly criticized as being "too inefficient", "too...

PSM Auditing Dilemmas

Mar 13, 2011
Michael Hazzan
In most PSM audits, the audit team will face one or more situations that represent a dilemma. These dilemmas usually require the individual auditor and/or the audit team leader resolve the situation in the field. These ?on the fly? resolutions require both astute judgment and practical solutions...

Improvement of BLEVE Overpressure Method Using Historical Data

Mar 13, 2011
Fei Chen
The current CCPS/TNO's BLEVE (Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion) overpressure methodology is derived from that published by Baker in 1975. This methodology assumes isentropic expansion work and uses Baker's graphical method and high-explosive correlation to calculate BLVE energy and...

Operational Discipline: Does Your Organization Do the Job Right Every Time?

Mar 13, 2011
Brian D. Rains
Operational Discipline: Does your organization &'do the job right every time&' Most organizations, especially those involved in handling hazardous materials or performing hazardous operations, invest considerable effort in preparing written instructions and procedures. Written procedures...

The UK Experience In Managing Risks Arising From Human Error

Mar 13, 2011
David Embrey
Following the Piper Alpha incident in the North Sea, both offshore and onshore Oil and Gas operators in the UK were required under the COMAH (Control of Major Accident Hazards) regulations to submit a Safety Case setting out how the risks in their installations were to be managed. After many years...

An Integrated Toolkit for Addressing Human Factors Issues in Process Safety

Mar 23, 2010
David Embrey
This paper describes an integrated toolset, called the Human Factors Workbench, which addresses the proactive and reactive control of human error in process operations. It is a practical application of the tools described in the CCPS publication: ‘Guidelines for Preventing Human Error in Process...

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