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.

Ensuring Consistency of Corporate Risk Criteria

Mar 22, 2010
J. Wayne Chastain
The recently published CCPS text Guidelines for Developing Quantitative Safety Risk Criteria makes a strong case for corporations developing risk criteria. One topic addressed in the text is the development of criteria for use in single cause – consequence risk analysis methodologies such as Layer...

Lessons Learned from Real World Application of the Bow-Tie Method

Mar 22, 2010
Steve Lewis
The benefits of using bow-tie diagrams for risk management have been realized by organizations world-wide. They provide a readily understandable visualization of the relationships between the causes of business upsets, the escalation of such event to a range of possible outcomes, the controls...

Journey towards PSM Excellence

Mar 22, 2010
Ravi Ramaswamy
This paper describes the experience, learning and major challenges in implementing Process Safety Management at Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) India. The Reliance Group, founded by Dhirubhai H. Ambani (1932-2002), is India's largest private sector enterprise, with businesses in the energy and...

LOPA – Going Down the Wrong Path

Mar 21, 2010
Robert F. Wasileski
Layer of Protection Analysis (LOPA) has quickly gained acceptance in the Chemical Processing Industries (CPI), and has risen to be one of the leading risk assessment techniques used for process safety studies. LOPA generally employs more rigor and science than what is encountered with qualitative...

Training Management of Change Approvers

Mar 21, 2010
Karen Study
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...

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...

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...

Fire Study of Melting Fiberglass Using FLUENT CFD Software

Mar 21, 2010
Steve G. Rochelle
Thermal insulation is used in chemical plants primarily as a tool to prevent energy loss. However, if installed properly, an added benefit is that of allowing the use of smaller relief valves when designing relief systems in the fire case. The study described in this report was initiated 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...

Chronic Pain Resulting from Your Relief Device Management Systems

Mar 21, 2010
David A. Moore
With the increasing use of Layer of Protection Analysis as a semi-quantitative method of assessing process risk, LOPA practitioners are asked to assign credit to numerous safeguards including relief devices. Relief devices are only as strong as the initial design of the component and the systems...

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...

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