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Process Safety Boot Camp

Instructor-led (classroom) Course
This intensive 4-day course is also offered periodically throughout the year to the broader chemical engineering public. Taught jointly by process safety veterans with decades of experience at major companies from the process industries, the course is highly interactive.

Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS)

CCPS was established in 1985 to focus on engineering and management practices that can prevent and mitigate catastrophic accidents involving release of hazardous materials. CCPS is supported by sponsors in the chemical and hydrocarbon process industries and active worldwide via conferences, books, databases, education, research, and more.

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Instrumented Protective Systems for Distillation Operations

Mar 21, 2010
Jennifer Mize
Distillation is one of the most common unit operations in the chemical processing industry. Using relative volatility as a means of separating chemicals involves adding large amounts of energy to the system at the base of the column, typically through the use of a reboiler, and then removing that...

A Guide to Developing and Implementing Safety Checklists: Plant Steam Utilities

Mar 21, 2010
Delmar Morrison
Steam generation is an integral part of most chemical process plants; however, the steam plant often is or can be overlooked in the area of hazard analysis. The reasons for this oversight are obvious: steam generation is considered to be an old and well understood process, and steam boiler systems...

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...

Assessing the Burning Rate of Solid Oxidizers

Mar 21, 2010
Elizabeth C. Buc
A method for assigning solid oxidizers and products containing oxidizers to an NFPA Class was developed. The method consists of two reaction-to-fire tests: a bench-scale screening test with thirty gram piles and an intermediate-scale fire exposure test with twenty four pounds of material in...

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...

Dust or Gas Explosion: Case Study of Dryer Explosion and Design Venting

Mar 21, 2010
Scott Davis
A recent explosion occurred in a single burner, recirculating solids ring dryer. No one was reported injured as a result of the explosion, however the explosion caused significant damage to the dryer and minor damage to sections of the facility. Despite the dryer having been designed with seven...

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...

LOPA and Human Reliability – Human Errors and Human IPLs

Mar 21, 2010
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 (...

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...

Consistent Consequence Severity Estimation

Mar 21, 2010
Angela Summers
LOPA, as a semi-quantitative analysis, often provides inconsistent results. This can be due to physical differences between units but often it is due to team's perceptual differences. Initiating event frequency evaluation using guidance tables is more consistent than consequence evaluation where...

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...

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...

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