化工过程开发中本质安全化设计策略

本质安全化设计是预防人为失误及设备失效、降低化工过程风险应优先采用的技术。在比较传统设计方法与本质安全化设计方法的基础上,讨论了化工过程开发各阶段实现本质安全的机会,认为在开发初期,实施本质安全化的成本低,难度小;通过分析可行性研究、工艺研究、概念设计、基础设计、工程设计等阶段本质安全化设计的影响因素、设计目标和设计方法,探索化工过程开发中本质安全化设计策略,提出了化工过程本质安全化设计流程。通过工艺过程本质安全设计、工艺流程的简化和优化、不同设计方案的本质安全度评估等措施,可提高化工过程本质安全水平。     

Development of inherent safety and health index for formulated product design

The numerous formulated products which are introduced to the market consist of chemical ingredients that may cause various safety and health hazards to the consumers. Therefore, it is extremely important to practice a systematic methodology to formulate products with acceptable safety and health performances. This work presents an index-based methodology to assess the safety and health hazards of the ingredients during the early formulation stage of product design. Hence, new inherent safety and health sub-indexes are introduced to improve the current safety and health hazards that are needed in formulated product design. The inherent safety and health sub-indexes are assigned with scores based on the degree of potential hazards. A higher score indicates a higher safety risk or severe health effect, and vice versa. The proposed methodology will greatly assist the users to identify the adverse safety and health effects caused by the ingredients. Hence, it is pivotal to eliminate or reduce the safety and health impacts from product usage. A case study on common ingredients used in the formulation of paint is presented on this study to describe the proposed method.     

Simple graphical method for inherent occupational health assessment

The concept of inherently safer design was introduced to design a fundamentally safer process so that hazards can be avoided or minimized rather than controlled or managed. The ideology has later been extended to the environmental, but not health criteria due to its complicated underlying principles. Even though health risk methods are already established, majority are for existing plants assessment. Early consideration of health aspect starting from process design stage however, has received much less attention. This paper introduces a simple graphical method to evaluate the inherent occupational health hazards of chemical processes during the R&D stage. A survey was conducted to identify the important health parameters for the graphical method development, involving nine world inherent safety and health experts. Based on their input, process mode, material volatility, operating pressure and chemical health hazard (toxicity and adverse effect) are the significant factors affecting inherent health hazards of chemical processes. The choice of parameters was bounded by the information availability at this stage. The method was applied on six routes to methyl methacrylate and ten routes to acetic acid. The parameters were plotted for each subprocess of the alternative routes. The ‘healthiest’ route was selected based on thorough hazards assessment across all the subprocesses. The first case study reveals the tertiary butyl alcohol as the ‘healthiest’ one as it poses relatively lower, or at least comparable hazards to the other routes due to exposure and health impacts. Meanwhile the acetic acid case study indicates ethanol oxide and ethyl oxide based routes as the inherently healthier as they operate at lower operating pressure besides posing comparable hazards level for the other three parameters, compared to the other routes. The case studies show that the inherent occupational health of a chemical process can already be evaluated easily in the R&D stage with the simple graphical method proposed.     

基于模糊综合评价的化工工艺本质安全指数研究

建立化工工艺的本质安全评价指标体系,包括可燃性、爆炸性、毒性、反应性、温度、压力、储量等7个指标。为解决前人指数法中的边界波动效应,采用模糊综合评价建立化工工艺本质安全评价指数模型,确定各指标的权重、危险分级及对各分级的隶属函数。以甲基丙烯酸甲酯的5条工艺路线为例进行分析,结论与前人提出的指数方法的评价结果相吻合,表明该指数方法可以用来进行化工工艺的本质安全评价,以指导设计初期的本质安全型工艺路线选择。     

Supporting the selection of process and plant design options by Inherent Safety KPIs

Effective support of inherent safety implementation in process design requires a quantitative metric for monitoring and communicating the expected safety performance of alternative design options. The Inherent Safety Key Performance Indicators (IS-KPIs) methodology was developed to provide both a flexible procedure for the identification of the hazards, and a sound consequence-based quantification of the safety performance. The integration of different hazard identification techniques yields the relevant accident scenarios for each unit in the plant. The calculation of credible damage distances by consolidate consequence simulation models provides a sound basis for the definition of the KPIs based on worst case effects. Specific indicators were devoted to hazards from external actions, as natural events and intentional malicious acts. The methodology was demonstrated by the comparison of alternative technological options for LNG regasification. The application evidenced the potential of the IS-KPI method in pinpointing the critical issues related to each alternative configuration.     

化工过程本质安全性之模糊评价系统

在综合分析化工过程构成的基础上,建立的化工过程本质安全性评价指标,借鉴国内外本质安全评价的研究,应用Matlab模糊推理系统,以评价指标的等级划分、隶属度函数设计及推理规则设定等为主线,建立化工过程本质安全性模糊评价系统,实现评价指标和评价推理结果的可视化。通过甲苯高温加氢脱烷烃制取苯的工艺过程,实施不同工艺路线及其操作条件改变的本质安全性评价,验证了所建立模糊评价系统的可行性。研究结果对指导化工安全设计和安全评价、减少和消除重大危险源,进一步提升我国化工行业的整体安全水平具有重要的理论和现实意义。     

Inherent safety in offshore oil and gas activities: a review of the present status and future directions

Inherent safety is a proactive approach for hazard/risk management during process plant design and operation. It has been proven that, considering the lifetime costs of a process and its operation, an inherently safer approach is a cost-optimal option. Inherent safety can be incorporated at any stage of design and operation; however, its application at the earliest possible stages of process design (such as process selection and conceptual design) yields the best results.Although it is an attractive and cost-effective approach to hazard/risk management, inherent safety has not been used as widely as other techniques such as HAZOP and quantitative risk assessment. There are many reasons responsible for this; key among them are a lack of awareness and the non-availability of a systematic methodology and tools.The inherent safety approach is the best option for hazard/risk management in offshore oil and gas activities. In the past, it has been applied to several aspects of offshore process design and operation. However, its use is still limited. This article attempts to present a complete picture of inherent safety application in offshore oil and gas activities. It discuses the use of available technology for implementation of inherent safety principles in various offshore activities, both current and planned for the future.     

Kletz's legacy for developing countries: Simple systems based on inherently safer design

The now well-known theory surrounding Inherently Safer Design (ISD) developed by Trevor Kletz has spread worldwide thanks to journals and almost unlimited communication between members of process safety all around the globe. This means that developing countries, such as Colombia, now have the possibility of applying it to their specific situations, which can often be resolved if the safety hierarchy is followed in order to attack problems from the design stage, a solution that might not seem instinctive, but is actually effective since there isn't a “reduction” strategy, but a removal of hazards. To apply this methodology to a specific Colombian case study, a previous quantitative risk analysis of an LPG storage tank farm in Colombia is revised and reformulated by developing an optimization (MINLP) based on the principles of inherent safety in order to design the same process (LPG pressurized storage) so that the available engineering tools can be used to mathematically formulate the inherent safety criteria. This allows determining the design conditions and safety measures needed to reduce the likelihood of an incident, being consistent with the Inherent Safety philosophy, which seeks a change of mental structure when designing processes, just like Trevor Kletz proposed and established as a new paradigm for Process Plants/Equipment design. The results of the project allow obtaining a specific optimal configuration of control, wall thickness, operating pressure and tank dimensions, pointing out a decrease of around 20% on the operating pressure.     

安全控制技术──用“控制论”研究重大工业危险源

首次将“控制论”中过程控制的理论与方法应用于重大工业危险源的安全控制，提出了“安全通道”和“事故临界状态”的概念，它不停留于对危险源的认识上（安全评价），而是针对危险源可能发生的灾难性事故采取切实有效的解决办法，是防止事故的最具成效的研究方法。本方法主要适用于大型、连续化生产的工业对身，用以防止重大事故。     

A semi-quantitative methodology for risk assessment of university chemical laboratory

University chemical laboratory is a high-risk place for teaching and scientific research due to the presence of various physical and chemical hazards. In recent years, university chemical laboratory accidents occur frequently. This urges the need to enhance university chemical lab safety. A semi-quantitative methodology comprising Matter-Element Extension Theory (MEET) implemented with Combination Ordered Weighted Averaging (C-OWA) operator is proposed to assess the risk of a university chemical laboratory. First, an index-based risk assessment system of university chemical laboratory is built by identifying various risk factors from a system perspective. Then, C-OWA operator is used to calculate the weight of assessment indices, whereas MEET is employed to determine the correlation degree of assessment indices. Finally, the comprehensive risk of university chemical laboratories is assessed, and some safety measures are proposed to reduce the risk of university chemical laboratories. The applicability of the proposed methodology is tested using a practical case. It is observed that the methodology can be a useful tool for risk assessment and management of university chemical laboratories.     

Chemical process route selection based upon the potential toxic impact on the aquatic,terrestrial and atmospheric environments

This paper proposes a method to estimate the inherent environmental friendliness of a chemical process plant by considering the potential toxicity impact on the aquatic, terrestrial and atmospheric environments. A worst-case scenario of a total loss of containment in the plant is assumed. The method proposed by [Gunasekera, M.Y., Edwards, D.W. (2003). Estimating the environmental impact of catastrophic chemical releases to the atomosphere: an index method for ranking alternative chemical process routes. Trans. IChemE., Part B, Process Safety and Environmental Protection, 81(B6), 463–474] for determining the inherent atmospheric environmental friendliness of a chemical plant is combined with the method proposed by [Cave, S.R., Edwards, D.W. (1997). Chemical process route selection based on assessment of inherent environmental hazard. Computers Chem. Engng., 21, S965–S970], which estimates the inherent friendliness to the aquatic and terrestrial environments.Application of this method to six routes to produce methyl methacrylate shows that the acetone cyanohydrin based route is potentially the least inherently environmentally friendly. The highest potential hazard is observed in the aquatic environment due to the chemicals associated with the acetone cyanohydrin route.     

Using process stream index (PSI) to assess inherent safety level during preliminary design stage

In the current practice, safety assessment is conducted once the process design has been completed. At this stage of design, the freedom to change the conceptual design is very limited and whatever strategies to be implemented will only control the hazard. This paper reports on the development of inherent safety index known as a process stream index (PSI) for inherent safety level assessment at preliminary design stage from the perspective of an explosion. The aim for PSI is to calculate, compare and prioritize the level of inherent safety of process streams during simulation work that influences the explosion. By prioritizing the streams based on the potential for the explosion, the design engineers can easily identify the critical streams to be considered for improvement in order to avoid or minimize explosion hazards. An enhancement technique to reflect the contribution of the individual components in the mixture is introduced, which provide significant contribution to the ranking of inherent safety level of process streams. The assessment of inherent safety level using PSI is demonstrated by case studies of HYSYS simulation for Acrylic Acid Plant and Natural Gas Liquid (NGL) plant.     

石化企业危险化工工艺风险等级评估指标分解

伴随石化企业的迅猛发展,危险品越来越多,生产条件越来越苛刻,同时带来的是更为重大的风险隐患以及安全事故,因此对危险工艺的风险评估就显得尤为重要.考虑到目前还没有什么好的方法来判别某种工艺就一定是危险化工工艺,因此本文在国家安监总局划分的15种危险化工工艺的基础上,根据危险化工工艺表征涉及的影响因素,结合化工工艺的实际情况,选择具有典型代表意义的重要性评价指标作为研究对象,建立了由67个具体指标形成的动态指标体系,并运用指标分类分解方法对各个指标进行量化,最后采用模糊数学综合评价对危险化工工艺进行了软件化评估,从而为政府和企业加强安全管理提供了便利,进一步实现石化企业的本质安全化.     

Strategies for assessing and reducing inherent occupational health hazard and risk based on process information

Over the last few decades, the concept of inherent occupational health has gained increasing attention to reduce occupational hazards that may adversely impact workers’ health. In order to assess occupational hazards in the chemical process, different inherent occupational health assessment methods have been developed at the early stages of process development and design. The methods in the order of process information availability – ranging from the detailed piping and instrumentation diagrams to a simple sketch of process concepts are the: occupational health index (OHI), health quotient index (HQI) and inherent occupational health index (IOHI). This paper proposes systematic heuristic frameworks to assist process designers and engineers in assessing and reducing inherent occupational health hazards or risks based on process information availability. Strategies for reducing health hazards or risks in the OHI, HQI and IOHI methods based on inherently safer design (ISD) keywords of minimization, substitution, moderation and simplification are included in this study. It is worth mentioning that the proposed frameworks act as guidelines for design engineers in systematically selecting the appropriate index and methodology to assess and reduce health hazards/risks based on the availability of the process information. A case study is solved to illustrate the proposed framework.     

LFT-G注塑工艺在玻璃钢安全帽生产中的应用

玻璃钢安全帽因具有强度高、耐高温,耐水、酸、碱、油、化学腐蚀及良好的绝缘性等特点,被广泛应用于石油化工、矿山、电力、冶炼等多个行业。目前,玻璃钢安全帽的生产工艺仅有两种,一是手糊,二是模压。但这两种生产工艺不仅存在粉尘、噪声、有毒物质等多种职业危害因素,而且由于部分关键工序采用手工制作,因而造成玻璃钢安全帽的质量性能的不稳定。使用LFT-G（长纤维增强热塑性塑料颗粒）作为原材料,将注塑工艺引进玻璃钢安全帽的生产中,实现了玻璃钢安全帽的注塑生产。这种工艺,不仅职业危害因素大大减少,而且也因关键工序中不存在手工作业,从而大大增加了玻璃钢安全帽质量的稳定性,同时,由于LFT-G粒料的长度增加,经过加工后,安全帽成品中的纤维长度也会增加,使得安全帽的抗冲击性能等满足标准要求。为此,以LFT-G为基础的玻璃钢安全帽的注塑工艺具有广阔的应用前景。     

What can the trove of CSB incident investigations teach us? A detailed analysis of information characteristics among chemical process incidents investigated by the CSB

Understanding the commonalities among previous chemical process incidents can help mitigate recurring incidents in the chemical process industry and will be useful background knowledge for designers intending to foster inherent safety. The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) reports provide detailed and vital incident information that can be used to identify possible commonalities. This study aims to develop a systematic approach for extracting data from the CSB reports with the objective of establishing these commonalities. Data were extracted based on three categories: attributed incident causes, scenarios, and consequences. Seventeen causal factors were classified as chemical indicators or process indicators. Twelve chemical indicators are associated with the hazards of the chemicals involved in the incidents, whereas five process indicators account for the hazards presented by process conditions at the time of the incident. Seven scenario factors represent incident sequences, equipment types, operating modes, process units, domino effects, detonation likelihood for explosion incidents, and population densities. Finally, three consequence factors were selected based on types of chemical incidents, casualties, population densities, and economic losses. Data from 87 CSB reports covering 94 incidents were extracted and analyzed according to the proposed approach. Based on these findings, the study proposes guidelines for future collection of information to provide valuable resources for prediction and risk reduction of future incidents.     

Dynamic Inherently Safer Modifications: Metric development and its validation for fire and explosion prevention

Of the numerous inherent safety assessment tools, a dynamic metric capable of investigating and incorporating the temporal risk evolution when conducting Inherently Safer Modifications (ISMs) is yet to be established. To this end, this work developed a Dynamic Inherent Safety Metric (DISM) and validated its functionality and viability through a case study. Firstly, the Information-Flow-based Accident-causing Model (IFAM) was adapted to construct the topology of Bayesian Networks (BN). Then, Bayesian deductive reasoning was executed to do crucial risk identification by ranking posterior probabilities. Finally, risk-based ISMs were performed to address the relatively contributing risk factors. The case study results show that the fire and explosion risk decreased by approximately a third after implementing ISMs, thus demonstrating that the modified processing scenario could be inherently safer than the original processing scenario. The newly developed inherent safety metric (i.e., DISM) can assist in temporal risk identification and assessment, and it is expected to function as a novel assessment tool for measuring and comparing the inherent safeness before and after implementing ISMs with simultaneous considerations on the time-varying risk factors.     

基于集对分析的化工工艺本质安全性评价方法

为了提高化工工艺本质安全性评价的有效性和全面性,根据集对分析理论建立了四元联系数评价模型。模型选用传统的本质安全指标及其分级标准,对各指标进行赋权,以甲基丙烯酸甲酯合成工艺路线为例进行实用性验证,最终确定了多条工艺路线的本质安全程度优劣顺序,并明确各自的本质安全程度。结果表明,集对分析方法能够客观全面地评价化工工艺路线的本质安全性,可以用于化工工艺路线的优选过程,为工艺安全管理和技术改进提供指导。     

苯和甲苯硝化及磺化反应热危险性分级研究

首先介绍了化工工艺热安全性的内涵,并从反应过程热危险性分析的方法学出发,介绍间隙、半间歇化学反应工艺热危险性分级研究的总体思路及方法。然后,围绕甲苯和苯的硝化、磺化反应,用全自动反应量热仪(RC1e)和加速度量热仪(ARC)测定其反应过程的绝热温升(△Tad)、目标反应所能达到的最高温度(TM)、分解反应最大速率到达时间(θD)等参数。运用风险评价指数矩阵法(方法1)和基于失控过程温度参数的热危险评估法(方法2)分别对其硝化和磺化反应过程的热危险性进行了分级评估。结果表明,这两种方法具有良好的一致性;给定工艺条件下甲苯和苯的一段硝化反应过程的热危险度等级较低;而磺化反应的热危险较高。尽管这两种方法还有一定的局限性,但对于间歇、半间歇合成工艺的本质安全化设计、工艺热危险性的评估具有重要的参考价值和实用意义。