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.

A Work Process for Revalidating LOPAs and Other Risk Analyses

Mar 14, 2011
Timothy J. Wagner
The Chemical Process Industry (CPI) has long recognized the necessity of periodically revalidating Process Hazard Analyses (PHAs), such as Hazard and Operability Studies and What-if analyses. CCPS has published a book which describes this work process titled Revalidating Process Hazard Analyses...

Inherently Safer Acids - A Case Study on the Application of Polyelectrolytes

Mar 14, 2011
Elliot M. Wolf
Strong acids, such as aqueous hydrochloric acid, are commonly used in the chemical process industry to purify streams or remove particulates from raw material, product, and waste streams. The benefits of HCl are its' low cost, large dissociation constant, and stability over time. However, the...

Inherently Safer Design – Not Only about Reducing Consequences!

Mar 14, 2011
Dennis C. Hendershot
Process risk is a function of both the likelihood of occurance of an incident, and of the consequences of the incident. There is a common perception that inherently safer design focuses solely on reducing or eliminating the consequences. However, inherently safer design can also focus on the...

Inherent Safety In Front End Engineering

Mar 14, 2011
Ian Sutton
The best time to apply the principles of inherent safety is during the early stages of a design. In particular it is at the early stages that the ?Eliminate? option is best applied. For example, in the early stages of one design the process engineers had come up with a system of three knockout...

Near Miss Reporting Behavior and the Safety Climate – A Scenario-Based Study

Mar 14, 2011
Sunil D. Lakhiani
In the aftermath of the March, 2005 incident at BP's Texas City Refinery, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board cited concerns about ?the effectiveness of the safety management system? and ?the corporate safety culture? at that refinery. Included in the Baker Panel's findings were discussions about...

Specifying Reliability Performance to Meet PSM Expectations

Mar 14, 2011
Kenneth P. Bloch
Process Hazard Analysis (PHA) and Mechanical Integrity (MI) programs are two of the fourteen elements that the Process Safety Management (PSM) Standard uses to prevent or minimize the consequences of catastrophic releases of toxic, reactive, flammable, or explosive chemicals. Experience proves that...

Methods for Precluding the Existence of a Dust-Explosion Hazard

Mar 14, 2011
Richard Prugh
The "generic" standard for preventing fires and explosions involving combustible dusts is the National Fire Protection Association publication NFPA 654. In this document, fifteen of the requirements are prefaced with the phrase "if an explosion hazard exists", and an additional four requirements...

The Buncefield Explosion: Were the Resulting Overpressures Really Unforeseeable?

Mar 14, 2011
Jérôme R. Taveau
On Sunday 11 December 2005, a severe unconfined vapour cloud explosion followed by several tank fires occurred at the Buncefield oil storage depot in England, causing widespread damage to homes and businesses surrounding the site, hopefully without any victim. The damage caused by the resulting...

Implementation of PSM In Capital Projects

Mar 14, 2011
Charles A. Soczek
It is critical to embed Process Safety Management in the capital project system to help achieve a safe start-up. This is the foundation for assuring safe operations throughout the life of the process, especially in the construction of facilities for high process hazards. Today's PSM system,...

Secondary Dust Explosions: How to Prevent Them or Mitigate Their Effects?

Mar 14, 2011
Jérôme R. Taveau
Dust explosions are frequent and particularly devastating in the process industries, and secondary dust explosions are the most severe ones. A secondary dust explosion can occur when the blast wave from a primary explosion entrains dust layers present in the plant, creating a large dust-air...

It's People, Stupid! Human Factors In Incident Investigation

Mar 14, 2011
Mike Broadribb
People have inherent strengths and weaknesses which can affect their performance. Issues such as fatigue, emotional stress, and motivation can adversely affect performance. Their performance is also influenced by factors external to the individual, such as poor equipment design, inadequate training...

Can Functional Testing Be Replaced by Inspection After Demands?

Mar 14, 2011
Hui Jin
Safety instrumented systems are used to reduce the risk of major accidents in the process industry. To claim a certain risk reduction from such systems, it is necessary to perform reliability analyses, within internationally accepted frameworks, such as the IEC 61511. The main factors that...

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