Process Safety Technical Areas

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,...

LOPA – Validating Human IPLs and Ies

Mar 14, 2011
Bill Bridges
Layer of Protection Analysis (LOPA) is a simplified risk assessment method that provides an order of magnitude estimate of the risk of a potential accident scenario. Humans can be the cause on an accident scenario (the Initiating Event [IE]) or human can serve as an independent protection layer (...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Making Existing Process Plants Inherently Safer

Mar 14, 2011
Victor H. Edwards
Making process plants inherently safer has obvious advantages and is easiest to do when designing a new plant. Modification of existing plants to make them inherently safer can often be much more difficult and costly, including any costs due to lost production. However, an inherently safer design...

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...

CFD Modeling Applications to Hydrogen Vehicle Explosion Safety Studies

Mar 14, 2011
Filippo Gavelli
The introduction of alternate fuel vehicles leads to new safety challenges. This is particularly relevant in the case of hydrogen vehicles, as flammable mixtures of hydrogen and air can be very dangerous. Potential hazard scenarios include gaseous or liquid hydrogen leaks, accumulation and ignition...

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...

An Analysis of CSB Investigation Reports for Inherent Safety Learnings

Mar 14, 2011
Paul R. Amyotte
The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) is an independent, nonregulatory federal organization in the United States dedicated to investigating serious accidents in the chemical industry. Accidents are investigated by a team of CSB employees and from the evidence collected a list of...

Using the HAZOP Study and LOPA to Generate Ideas for Inherently Safer Designs

Mar 14, 2011
Steven T. Maher
Fundamental changes in a chemical process are most cost-effective at early stages of a design, and specific Inherently Safer Design evaluations are frequently performed at these early stages to identify fundamental improvements that can signicantly decrease the magnitude of the consequences...

Guidelines for Identifying and Mitigating Thermal Hazards of Sustainable Materials

Mar 14, 2011
Delmar R. Morrison
Sustainable materials and technologies (a.k.a. ?Green?) are those that are ?delivered with progressively less negative impact upon the Earth.? Thermal hazards such as self-heating, thermal runaway, fires, and explosions may be associated with a particular sustainable material or process technology...

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