Safety investment optimization in process industry: A risk-based approach

Process plant safety is a critical indicator of organizational performance. Adequate investment into safety practices to avoid future accident cost is therefore a beneficial strategy. The current approach to such investments in the process industry is driven largely by simple risk-based heuristics, insurance market premiums, organizational culture and management judgment. There is, however, an absence of an overarching methodology to assist such an effort. Therefore, there is a need for developing a robust decision-making framework for enabling systematic and optimal allocation of financial resources across all significant risk elements within a process plant.The present work proposes a safety investment optimization (SIO) framework for a typical process plant. Such an optimization approach targets maximal reduction of risk values across all potential hazards within the constraint of a given safety investment budget at the incipient stage of establishing a plant such that it saves future cost to company by reducing the risk from accidents. At the same time the framework takes into account the need to comply with the regulatory requirements imposed by the government. Additionally, access to insurance market as a strategy to transfer risk is also integrated. Finally, the residual risks are managed through investments in selective safeguards while ensuring that the benefits over-weigh the cost of such an exercise. For illustrating the application of the framework, a representative process plant with a select number of risk scenarios is chosen and all steps suggested by the framework are demonstrated quantitatively. It is anticipated that the proposed SIO framework will help optimal resource allocation for managing the risks implicit in a typical process plant.     

Methods and models in process safety and risk management: Past,present and future

The paper reviews past progress in the development of methods and models for process safety and risk management and highlights the present research trends; also it outlines the opinions of the authors regarding the future research direction in the field. Based on the open literature published in the leading journals in the field of safety, risk and reliability, the review covers the evolution of the methods and models developed for process safety and risk management. The methods and models are categorized as qualitative, semi-quantitative, quantitative and hybrid. The progress in the last few decades is discussed in the context of the past. Developments in the current decade formulate the basis of the present trends; future directions for research in these fields are also outlined. The aim of the article is to provide a historical development in this field with respect to the driving forces behind the development. It is expected that it will help researchers and industrial practitioners to gain a better understanding of the existing concepts. At the same time the aim is to provide direction to bridge the existing gaps through research and developments.     

非安全专业开设安全科技概论的教学研究

本文探讨了在非安全专业开设安全科技概论的必要性,认为开设安全科技概论是抓好学生安全教育、普及安全知识、增强安全意识的必要途径.通过对非安全工程专业安全科技概论的教学,指出了现行教学过程中的存在的一些问题,并针对这些问题提出了意见和建议.这对今后在开设安全科技概论有一定的借鉴作用,也为全民普及安全教育奠定了良好的基础.     

A review of the past,present and future of the European loss prevention and safety promotion in the process industries

In 2013, the European Federation of Chemical Engineering (EFCE) celebrates its 60th anniversary. EFCE has continually promoted scientific collaboration and supported the work of engineers and scientists in thirty European countries. As for its mission statement, EFCE helps European Society to meet its needs through highlighting the role of Chemical Engineering in delivering sustainable processes and products. Within this organizational framework the Loss Prevention Symposium series, organized throughout Europe on behalf of the Loss Prevention Working Party of the EFCE, represents a fruitful tradition covering a time span of forty years. The tri-annual symposium gathers experts and scientists to seek technical improvements and scientific support for a growingly safer industry and quality of life. Following the loss prevention history in this paper, a time perspective on loss prevention and its future is presented.     

Recent application of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) in process safety and loss prevention: A review

In recent years, significant progress has been made to ensure that process industries are among the safest workplaces in the world. However, with the increasing complexity of existing technologies and new problems brought about by emerging technologies, a strong need still exists to study the fundamentals of process safety and predict possible scenarios. This is attained by conducting the corresponding consequence modeling and risk assessments. As a result of the continuous advancement of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tools and exponentially increased computation capabilities along with better understandings of the underlying physics, CFD simulations have been applied widely in the areas of process safety and loss prevention to gain new insights, improve existing models, and assess new hazardous scenarios. In this review, 126 papers from 2010 to 2020 have been included in order to systematically categorize and summarize recent applications of CFD for fires, explosions, dispersions of flammable and toxic materials from accidental releases, incident investigations and reconstructions, and other areas of process safety. The advantages of CFD modeling are discussed and the future of CFD applications in this research area is outlined.