Process Safety - Test

• Hydrocarbon Processing article published


  July 2012
• Process safety


  Ensuring the safety of industrial processes to prevent catastrophic events
• The driving force for process safety has been primarily based on catastrophic events
• Process safety


  • Aims to minimize loss of life, property damage, and environmental harm from industrial accidents
• US government issued the River Harbor Act to avoid excess dumping in waterways


  1899
• Reported as the worst year for mine deaths, with 1,775 deaths

  1910
• Process safety development


  1. 1930-1970: All about regulations

  2. 1970-2000: Learning from accidents

  3. 2000-2012: Process safety in the new millennium
• Regulations established 1936-1969


  • Walsh-Healy Public Contracts Act (1936)
  • Coal Mine Safety Act (1952)
  • Metal and Nonmetallic Mine Safety Act (1966)
  • Construction Safety Act (1969)
  • Coal Mine Health and Safety Act (1969)
• Occupational Safety and Health Act passed, establishing OSHA and NIOSH

  1970
• Flixborough explosion in the UK

  1974
• Seveso tragedy in Italy

  1976
• Bhopal gas disaster in India


  1984
• Mexico City disaster with boiling liquid expanding vapor explosions (BLEVES)


  1984
• Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine

  1986
• Piper Alpha accident in the UK North Sea

  1988
• Phillips 66 plant explosion in Pasadena, Texas

  1989
• Significant initiatives in the US

  • Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) established (1985)
  • Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA) signed (1986)
  • Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) signed (1987)
  • Clean Air Act Amendments (CAAA) (1990)
  • OSHA promulgated Process Safety Management (PSM) standard (1992)
  • EPA promulgated Risk Management Program (RMP) (1996)
  • US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) established (1998)
• Significant initiatives in Europe

  • Flixborough incident report introduced consequence modeling and risk assessment (1974)
  • Second Canvey Report included additional hazard models and injury relationships (1981)
  • Control of Industrial Major Accident Hazards (CIMAH) Regulations established (1964)
  • Seveso Directive replaced by Seveso II Directive (1996)
  • Control of Major Accident Hazards (COMAH) Regulations established (1999)
• Columbia space shuttle disaster

  2003
• Macondo blowout in the Gulf of Mexico

  2010
• Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant incident

  2011
• Technical achievements pre-1970


  • Techniques developed to identify and evaluate hazards, calculate consequences, and quantify event probabilities and risk (e.g. What-If, Checklist, HAZOP, Fault- and Event-Tree analyses)
  • HAZOP study developed by ICI in 1963
  • Fault tree analysis (FTA) developed in the early 1960s
• Technical achievements 1970s-1980s


  • Models for pool formation, releases, evaporation, fire and explosions refined
  • Research motivated by major disasters in the 1980s (e.g. HAZOP, MOC, chemical releases, VCE, reactive chemical releases, inherent safety, fires, explosions, offshore QRA, management systems, BLEVES, flammability, safety culture)
• Fault tree analysis (FTA) technique quickly gained widespread interest, especially in nuclear and power installations. Since the development of FTAs, great efforts and advances (analytic methodologies, computer programs, computer codes) have occurred in the quantitative evaluation of fault trees.
• Models for pool formation, releases, evaporation and fire and explosions were refined


  1970s and 1980s
• A series of fatal incidents in the 1970s and 1980s reinforced the importance of these models and were one of the principal motivations for further research and improvements.
• Bhopal increased substantially the interest and activity of the research and academic communities in a wide range of areas related with process safety, principally in reactivity hazards, inherent safety and chemical releases.
• The 500 deaths involved in Mexico City clearly demonstrated the importance and hazards involved in BLEVES.
• Piper Alpha focused attention on jet fires, pool fires, carbon monoxide fires (initial CO poisoning caused most of the deaths) and explosions in modules with turbulence generation.
• The aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster gave birth to the safety culture concept.
• The cause of the Phillips incident was a modification in a routine maintenance procedure, which reinforced to the process industry the importance of incorporating management systems, such as MOC procedures.
• The 1970s and 1980s were decades of major incidents and great losses, but there is no doubt that these two decades made a great impact on what today we call "process safety."
• In response to new regulations and regulatory initiatives, collection of incident history data started at a rudimentary level. Advances in technology and the research conducted by different centers, such as the Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center (which was established in 1995), allowed for the development and availability of increasingly reliable incident databases.

  1990s to present day
• In the late 1990s, the Chemical Safety Board (CSB), in its MOC safety bulletin, highlighted the importance of having a systematic method for MOC, and how this is an essential ingredient for safe chemical process operations.
• In the 1990s and early 2000s, the development of engineered nano-materials increased considerably, introducing a new area of research to process safety, where researchers are trying to understand the workplace exposure and environmental aspect of nanotechnologies.
• Fatal incidents in this new millennium highlighted some areas of process safety where research is still needed.
• Research needed based on recent incidents

  • Safety culture
  • Risk assessment
  • Facility siting
  • Fatigue
  • Vapor cloud explosion
  • Tank farm consequence models
  • Pool fires
  • Reactive chemicals
  • Dust explosion
  • Nuclear safety
• Dust explosion research has been conducted on and off for more than 100 years, but events such as the Imperial Sugar Co. incident demonstrate the need for further research, awareness and management systems.
• Reactive chemistry incidents continue to occur in the chemical processing industry, and more experimental and theoretical research is necessary to fully understand the kinetics and thermal behavior of industrial chemical reactions.
• The tragic Columbia shuttle incident showed the possible fatal consequences of bad industrial communication, and it is important that research and safety professionals understand and evaluate good safety culture that enables the sharing of information and improvement of safety within the industries.