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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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Inherently Safer Design – Not Only about Reducing Consequences!

Mar 14, 2011
Dennis C. Hendershot
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...

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...

Specifying Reliability Performance to Meet PSM Expectations

Mar 14, 2011
Kenneth P. Bloch
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...

Near Miss Reporting Behavior and the Safety Climate – A Scenario-Based Study

Mar 14, 2011
Sunil D. Lakhiani
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...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Effect of Physical Properties of Particulates on Fires and Dust Explosions

Mar 14, 2011
Konanur Manjunath
There has been a dramatic approach in the way we are implementing process safety guidelines and standards for combustible. This is particularly true for North America where there have been devastating dust explosions occurring for the last 10 years or so. Following this, OSHA has initiated NEP,...

Analysis of Independent Protection Layers Used In Three Typical Chemical Processes

Mar 14, 2011
Herb W. H. Meyer
Independent protection layers (IPLs) used to mitigate most severe consequences are analyzed for three chemical processes: Olefins, Low-density Polyethylene, and an intermediates chemical plant. The IPLs are categorized by type (i.e., interlocks, PSVs, independent alarms, etc.), by function (...

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