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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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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...

Is It Really an Independent Protection Layer?

Mar 21, 2010
Arthur M. Dowell
Layer of Protection Analysis (LOPA) is a simplified chemical process risk assessment tool that is used to determine if sufficient independent protection layers are in place to meet an organization's risk tolerance criteria for a particular hazardous scenario. LOPA can determine how much additional...

Lifecycle Physical Hazards of Polystyrene Foam Board

Mar 21, 2010
Atsumi Miyake
Polymer Foam Boards have been widely used for individual home and general building, from roofs and/or walls down to foundation, for example. On the other hand, these Boards have significant physical hazards, because flammable blowing agent has come to be used, replacing nonflammable CFC chemicals...

Quantitative Risk Assessment Case Study for Organic Acid Processes

Mar 21, 2010
R. Wayne Garland
Acetic acid is not a chemical covered by the OSHA PSM regulation, as its flash point is above the 100 F threshold for flammables; however, it is by no means a non-hazardous chemical. Eastman Chemical Company has a large number of processes containing acetic acid and related organic acids, and as a...

HAZOP, LOPA, SIL: Be Careful What You Ask for!

Mar 21, 2010
Mike Broadribb
In recent years Process Safety Engineers have promoted the use of HAZOP to identify hazards and assess safeguards, followed by LOPA to identify if additional protection layers are necessary and, if they are to be provided using safety instrumented functions, how reliable the SIFs need to be...

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...

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