Process Safety Technical Areas

Recent studies have shown the importance of identifying near-misses to predict the probability of accidents (Meel and Seider, 2006) – and managing them to reduce the potential of accidents (Phimister et al., 2003; Cooke and Rohleder, 2006). In this paper, new methodologies involving near-miss...

With the update of the High Integrity Protective System (HIPS) methodology by API in 2007, Dow Chemical updated its internal work process to apply Dow's risk based work processes to HIPS design, application and evaluation. Rather than just focusing on the vessel related consequences of substituting...

This paper describes the Consequence Modeling of Chlorine release from a Chlor Alkali plant as a part of Process Hazard Analysis. The objective was to carry out a Quantitative Risk Assessment Study of the liquid Chlorine storage area of the Chlor Alkali plant and build up in-house capability to...

Combustion of biomass is becoming an increasingly important energy source. This is especially true for wood pellets, as several power companies have decided to use this fuel instead of coal. In this process the wood pellets are ground in big mills and, from there, pneumatically transported to the...

A method for adjusting spring operated pressure relief valve (SORV) inspection intervals is presented based on hazard identification, financial risk assessment, fluid service, and comparison of the life-cycle testing costs. Intuitively, longer intervals between maintenance and proof testing should...

A subset of 44 failed spring operated pressure relief valves (SORV) from a set of over 5600 Process Equipment Reliability Database (PERD) proof tests was subjected to root cause of failure analysis (RCA). This paper reports on the findings of those 44 analyses and includes specific examples of root...

Many flammable products are usually stored in large vessels at atmospheric pressure. Ignition of an hydrocarbon-air mixture in such tanks can lead to an explosion and cause lethal casualties, as in 2006 at Partridge-Raleigh oilfield, USA, or damage the surrounding facilities and buildings. To...

Combustible dust hazards are prevalent in many facilities throughout industry, including the chemical process industries. Lack of awareness and control of these hazards has led to numerous catastrophic accidents. Chevron Phillips Chemical Company LP has developed a practical approach to identifying...

The methodologies in the chapter on “Dispersion Modeling” in the CCPS book Guidelines for Consequence Analysis of Chemical Releases, provide means for modeling outdoors releases at relatively long distances from a large source. At times it is necessary to model releases at relatively short...

During spray drying, a solution is dispersed through a nozzle in small droplets to evaporate the water by means of hot air. In a large number of these processes, organic materials are processed so three out of four factors for dust explosions to occur are already present. The only thing missing for...