Elements of Process Safety

The Abnormal Situation Management® Consortium funded a study to investigate common failure modes and root causes associated with operations practices. The study team analyzed 20 public and 12 private incidents for common operations practice failure modes including the BP Texas City Incident. A key...

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...

The Savannah River Site (SRS) spring operated pressure relief valve (SORV) maintenance intervals were evaluated using an approach provided by the American Petroleum Institute (API RP 581) for risk-based inspection technology (RBI). In addition, the impact of extending the inspection schedule was...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

Analysis of the activity of the operator in the task of the industry requires the establishment of definitions regarding the Human Reliability, Influence Environments and, affective, cognitive and intuitive functions a connection with the job. These explanations depend on the operational and...