The post-Bhopal and post-9/11 transformations in chemical emergency prevention and response policy in the United States

The United States' approach to incident prevention and response to hazardous chemical facilities has undergone two major transformations in the last 20 years. The first was triggered by the Bhopal tragedy in 1984, which led to major changes within the US chemical industry and a series of Federal laws and regulations intended to prevent major chemical accidents. A more recent transformation is currently underway in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. It involves the advent of various security-related requirements affecting many of the same facilities covered under the existing accident prevention rules. This paper provides an overview of these transformations and their impacts.     

化学实验室火灾、爆炸原因分析及防火防爆措施

从化学实验室内使用的化学物品的易燃易爆性能,存在的各种火源入手,分析了化学实验室发生火灾爆炸事故的原因和爆炸事故的特点,在此基础上提出了防火防爆的具体措施。     

Revising HFACS for SMEs in the chemical industry: HFACS-CSMEs

Chemical accidents have occurred frequently in recent years, and most have occurred in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). SMEs in the chemical industry face greater challenges than large enterprises with regard to accident prevention. However, SMEs have been unable to effectively learn from accidents due to the limited resources. The accident causation model is an effective tool to help the analyst learn from accidents. As a systematic accident causation model, the causes classification in the human factors analysis and classification system (HFACS) can match the characteristics of SMEs, but the cause of chemical accidents can be ineffectively identified by HFACS. In this study, HFACS was revised for the SMEs in the chemical industry, mainly consisting of three parts. First, based on the definition of factors in the original HFACS, the extended HFACS framework was obtained, which include 78 manifestations with the characteristics of the chemical accidents. Second, 101 accidents occurring in a SME in the chemical industry from 2012 to 2016 were analyzed though the extended HFACS framework. Finally, a new model, known as the HFACS-CSMEs, was obtained by further revising the manifestations and causes classification according to the statistical results of the accident analysis. HFACS-CSMEs consists of 15 cause factors and 56 manifestations, which can effectually identify and distinguish the causes in chemical accidents. Moreover, the easy-to-understand and statistically acceptable features of HFACS-CSMEs can cater to the SMEs regarding accident analysis. HFACS-CSMEs solves the problem that HFACS cannot be directly applied to chemical accidents and provides new ideas about preventing accidents in SMEs in the chemical industry.     

Uncertainties in QRA: Analysis of losses of containment from piping and implications on risk prevention and mitigation

Quantitative Risk Assessment (QRA) is commonly used in the chemical industry to support decision-making. Common practices are based on standard methods, such as fault tree, event tree, etc.; in this frame, risk is a function of frequency of events (probability) and associated consequences (negative outcomes), but relevant uncertainties often are not properly taken into account in the derived results. This paper presents the application of an extended risk analysis of loss of containments for a case-study with the following aims: firstly, the uncertainties related to the results of the analysis, which derive from assumption in the application of the standard models, are qualitatively assessed; secondly the application allows evaluating the impact of the uncertainties on the trustworthiness of the results and, finally, commenting about their use in the risk prevention and mitigation.     

反核生化恐怖与大气科学

在组成反恐战略诸要素中 ,科技政策是核心要素。“9·1 1”事件后 ,反恐上升为美国科技领域的头号课题 ,政府加大了对科技反恐的投入 ,我国也面临同样的抉择。恐怖活动除了直接实施核生化恐怖威胁之外 ,还通过破坏核生化设施同样达到核生化恐怖的效果 ,甚至比直接实施核生化恐怖更为严重。据调查 ,各大中城市生产使用有毒、有害、易燃、易爆化学物质的工厂占全部工厂的 80 %以上 ,年用量成千上万吨。在恐怖分子应用最多的爆炸和燃烧事件中 ,人员的主要伤亡不是来自于炸伤、烧伤 ,而是因爆炸和燃烧所产生的毒气中毒。研究表明 ,在各种有毒物质传播途径中 ,空气和水体扩散所占比例最大。笔者针对反恐问题 ,论述了大气科学与核生化恐怖的关系 ,重点突出了大气科学、空气动力学及流体力学在反核生化恐怖科研中的战略地位     

Systematic review on the implementation methodologies of inherent safety in chemical process

The accomplishments of inherent safety in the field of loss prevention thus far are impressive due to its scientific philosophy: reducing risks at source rather than adding engineered and procedural protections. Generally, the implementation of inherent safety can be done through a cohesive set of fourteen principles elucidated by Kletz and Amyotte. This work, guided by the fourteen principles, presents a systematic review on the implementation methodologies of inherent safety. Firstly, PRISMA procedure was adopted to select eligible literatures according to inclusive and exclusive criteria. After obtaining the selected literatures, the preference, level of application, and gaps in using these principles were critically analyzed. Of the fourteen principles, intensification, substitution, attenuation, simplification, limitation of effects, and avoidance of knock-on effects are preferable to implementing inherent safety in chemical process. Although the remaining principles are also potentially useful, they are not commonly used due to their costs and complexities of implementation. Overall, this work presents a complete spectrum to look across the implementation methodologies of inherent safety and concludes with some holistic and inclusive approaches as future research recommendations.     

Environmental disaster education at the university level: an integrative approach

Because of the highly complex nature of chemical and nuclear accidents, efforts aimed at prevention, preparedness and response require the melding of many types of knowledge and the close collaboration of a wide range of professions. Nevertheless, the need for such integration and cooperation is not always strongly emphasized in university-level curricula. As a result, developing professionals have few opportunities to learn and practise unified models of environmental accident management. In an effort to foster a more integrative approach, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA, has launched the “Environmental Disasters” project. The project crosses disciplinary boundaries with respect to both curriculum and enrollment. In terms of curriculum, the project examines chemical and nuclear accidents from a multi-dimensional perspective, considering not only regulatory, scientific and policy issues, but also the public health, social, and psychological implications. In terms of enrollment, the project brings together students from the full range of fields that are involved with environmental accidents, including engineering, public health, public administration, social work, psychology, nursing, communications, medicine, and environmental studies. Emphasizing the need for a collaborative approach, students work in multi-disciplinary teams as they explore theory, case studies and current research. In addition, the student teams develop detailed plans for addressing the effects of a chemical or nuclear disaster. With environmental accidents representing an on-going threat to health and safety, the approach discussed in this article may provide a useful model for environmental disaster education at the university level.     

Preparing for major terrorist attacks against chemical clusters: Intelligently planning protection measures w.r.t. domino effects

Chemical industrial areas or so-called chemical clusters consist of hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of chemical installations situated next to each other. Such areas can thus be seen as the summation of a large number of structures exhibiting danger to a certain degree for initiating or continuing accident domino effects or knock-on effects. In this article, an approach to investigate in a systemic way the vulnerability of each installation within the larger chemical cluster context, is developed. Our suggested method results in a prioritization of chemical installations with respect to their vulnerability for domino effects. The method can be used for intelligently designed protection of chemical industrial areas against terrorist attacks.     

The Bhopal tragedy: its influence on process and community safety as practiced in the United States

The chemical accident at 12:45 AM on December 3, 1984 in Bhopal India had a profound effect on the practice of chemical process safety in the United States. Fearing the possibility of similar events occurring in the United States, the United States Congress convened several hearings and investigations into the causes of the disaster. The inquiries focused both on the state of process safety within the US chemical industry and on the readiness of communities located near chemical operations to respond to sudden and dangerous toxic discharges. Of equal significance were concerns over the safety of workers in chemical plants. This paper reviews the major legislative, academic, and industrial changes initiated in the area of process safety after the event, their influence on saving lives, and on improving living conditions surrounding chemical complexes in the United States.     

Decision support systems for major accident prevention in the chemical process industry: A developers’ survey

Solid major accident prevention management is characterized by efficient and effective risk assessments. As a means of addressing the efficiency aspect, decision support analysis software is becoming increasingly available. This paper discusses the results of a survey of decision support tools for investigating (internal and external) major hazards in the chemical industry. The most significant features, such as the usability and the functionality of the toolkits are discussed. Toolkit characteristics are analyzed in the light of the different major risk decision process stages. Consequently, valuable supportive information for company decision makers purchasing such software is given. Furthermore, conclusions are drawn and recommendations are formulated for establishing priorities for future risk toolkits developments.     

化工生产中静电危害的消除

在化学工业生产中,由于各种材料上静电的产生和积累,会造成生产事故.该文对化工生产中静电的危害作了简述,并着重介绍了其预防和消除的方法.     

用伴随方法对毒气泄漏事件进行危害评估

由于自然、人为等因素造成的有毒气体泄漏事件随时威胁着人们的生命安全。对于这类突发事故进行危害评估 ,在应急救援中 ,可以给决策者提供参考 ,使之采取有效措施 ,最大限度地降低事故危害程度 ,减少事故恶果及引起的恐慌。由于毒气泄漏位置事先无法确定 ,如果用常规方法进行逐点评估 ,将面临着巨大的计算量而难以进行。笔者发展了一种伴随方法 ,对风险函数的表达式进行等价变形 ,通过求解伴随方程 ,可以一次求得任意位置的毒气泄漏的风险值 ,大大降低计算量和工作量。此法在化学工厂和仓库设置 ,煤气网铺设和监测点选取 ,城市应急中心设置等多种安全规划中均有重要价值 ,为快速危害评估 ,降低化学事故危害提供了有力的研究工具和实用方法。     

Stock market responses to chemical accidents in Japan: An event study

Despite recent major chemical process accidents in Japan, the top management teams of firms still avoid taking costly risk reduction measures because of their low perceived impact on firm performance. The disclosure of information on accident risks might motivate managers to enhance workplace safety because of the subsequent evaluation of firms by investors in stock markets. If the disclosed risk information is newly available for investors, firms with a high risk of accidents would receive a poor evaluation by stock markets and thus managers would take risk reduction measures to prevent stock prices from declining. In this study, we conduct an event study analysis to examine whether accident risk information is already reflected in stock prices, using data on the Japanese chemical industry. The results of our event study show that the estimated cumulative average abnormal returns of firms' stocks are significantly negative after severe accidents actually occurred. This finding implies that risk information is not already reflected in the stock prices of Japanese chemical firms and that the disclosure of accident risk information has the potential to motivate the top management teams of firms to reduce their firms’ accident risk.     

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.     

化学工业废水处理的技术和管理问题分析

化学是现代工业体系的基础,随着当前社会的发展,化学工业废水的排放与处理问题越来越受到人们的重视。本文分析了当前化学工业废水处理中的问题,然后重点阐述了微电解技术在化学工业废水处理中的运用。     

化工园区污水深度处理工艺的选择及可行性分析

现阶段,我国经济仍保持着良好的发展势头,而在此发展过程中,也出现了更多的化工企业,化工园区数量也有所增加。因此,也相应增加了化工污水排放量,加剧了对环境的污染,加大了污水处理的难度。所以,当前做好污水处理工艺的选择及可行性分析显得愈加重要。本文从笔者工作经验出发,对污水深度处理工艺的选择及可行性分析展开了着重探讨。     

石油钻井过程硫化氢污染和化学控制技术的研究与发展

根据硫化学的基础理论,分析和探讨了石油钻井过程硫化氢污染产生原因和化学控制原理,评述了硫化氢化学控制技术的研究与发展状况     

强化化工园区中小企业特种设备安全监管的若干思考

本文分析、梳理中小型化工企业特种设备安全管理现状和存在的问题,总结国内外化工行业特种设备安全管理经验,从风险管理内涵、保险机制、过程安全管理、安全主体责任落实等角度,构建化工企业特种设备安全监管思路和对策,为促进我国化工中小企业特种设备安全监管提供一定的参考.     

基于重要性分析的甲烷/乙烯混合燃烧框架机理构筑

建立了基于重要性分析的详细化学机理分析平台,利用耦合组分化学存活时间和敏感性系数的重要性参数,确定详细机理中的准稳态组分,通过移除这些组分及其相关反应,得到了计算精度较高的框架机理。针对目前燃烧学界较为关注的混合燃烧问题,以甲烷、乙烯这两种典型低碳碳氢燃料为研究对象,对其详细化学反应机理进行了分析,利用重要性分析法构筑框架机理,并对甲烷/空气和甲烷/乙烯/空气预混火焰进行了数值计算。与详细机理相比,框架机理所涉及的组分数与基元反应数都得到了大幅度的降低,计算时间明显减少,但对火焰温度及反应物、生成物、中间组分浓度的预测与采用详细机理得到的结果吻合良好,证明了重要性分析法的有效性与可靠性。     

基于HFACS-BN模型的危险化学品事故人因路径分析*

为提高危险化学品安全管理水平,收集我国134起以人为主因的危险化学品事故,构建危险化学品事故的HFACS-BN模型,并基于贝叶斯网络对危险化学品事故中的人因路径及各因素灵敏度进行分析。研究结果表明:行为违规是导致事故的最主要不安全行为;在复杂路径中,环境因素和操作者状态具有较高的灵敏度,与其相关的风险认知与处理不当是阻碍事故预防的关键因素;在非复杂路径中,操作者状态与运行计划不当具有较高的灵敏度,其所涉及的监督违规、组织过程和组织氛围,是导致危险化学品事故的根本起点,并可依此分析事故直接原因和间接原因;操作者状态在2种路径中均表现出高灵敏度,因此化工企业在人员管理上要加强关注职工状态,减少不安全行为的出现。