Quantitative assessment in safety reports of the consequences from the detonation of solid explosives

Safety reports are mandatory documents in member states of European Union whenever any threshold limits of amounts of either stored or processed hazardous substances are exceeded. After a short introduction to EU Seveso Directives on major-accident hazards involving dangerous substances and to the transposition and implementation by member states, with a brief comment on last 2012/18/EU Directive (also known as Seveso III directive), the paper focuses on drafting of safety reports for industrial activities involving solid explosives. Specifically, the quantitative assessment of consequences from detonation is tackled respect to the side-on overpressure and the debris production. Both direct and inverse problems are illustrated to determine respectively the overpressure value at a given distance, and the explosive amount that allows respecting the regulations. Their solution is based on either analytic or numerical techniques and being based on recent scientific publications on the matter either evaluates or zeroes nonlinear algebraic equations. The availability of these equations avoids grounding the consequences assessment on diagrams and nomograms that otherwise would lead to interpretation and usage errors besides avoiding the automatic solution of the inverse problem. The paper focuses also on details such as embankment, crater, munitions, rocket propellant, building structure, and wall material that, at different levels, play a role in the assessment of detonation consequences. A discussion on debris formation, the available literature, and the evaluation of the impact probability of fragments on both fixed and moving targets closes the paper.     

Fault propagation behavior study and root cause reasoning with dynamic Bayesian network based framework

The Bhopal disaster was a gas leak incident in India, considered the world's worst industrial disaster happened around process facilities. Nowadays the process facilities in petrochemical industries have becoming increasingly large and automatic. There are many risk factors with complex relationships among them. Unfortunately, some operators have poor access to abnormal situation management experience due to the lack of knowledge. However these interdependencies are seldom accounted for in current risk and safety analyses, which also belonged to the main factor causing Bhopal tragedy. Fault propagation behavior of process system is studied in this paper, and a dynamic Bayesian network based framework for root cause reasoning is proposed to deal with abnormal situation. It will help operators to fully understand the relationships among all the risk factors, identify the causes that lead to the abnormal situations, and consider all available safety measures to cope with the situation. Examples from a case study for process facilities are included to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. It also provides a method to help us do things better in the future and to make sure that another such terrible accident never happens again.     

Uncertainties in a risk management context in early phases of offshore petroleum field development

The current risk management approach for the Norwegian offshore petroleum industry came into effect in 2001 and has been stable with minor changes for 15 years. Relatively few new installations were slated for development until quite recently, and several new projects have been started in the last few years. The paper considers the risk management approach in the pre-FEED phase and builds on two case studies selected from the most recent cases. These case studies have been evaluated with respect to how uncertainties are considered in the early phase, based on the submission of the Plan for Development and Operation, their evaluations by authorities and the supporting documents. Both case studies involve new concepts for which there is no experience from similar environments and/or water depths. In spite of what could have been expected, the case studies conclude that uncertainties have not been in focus at all during concept development. This appears to be definitely the case for the licensees, but also to be the case for the authorities. Some suggestions are presented for what could have been considered by the licensees and authorities.     

Pipeline leakage detection and isolation: An integrated approach of statistical and wavelet feature extraction with multi-layer perceptron neural network (MLPNN)

Leakage diagnosis of hydrocarbon pipelines can prevent environmental and financial losses. This work proposes a novel method that not only detects the occurrence of a leakage fault, but also suggests its location and severity. The OLGA software is employed to provide the pipeline inlet pressure and outlet flow rates as the training data for the Fault Detection and Isolation (FDI) system. The FDI system is comprised of a Multi-Layer Perceptron Neural Network (MLPNN) classifier with various feature extraction methods including the statistical techniques, wavelet transform, and a fusion of both methods. Once different leakage scenarios are considered and the preprocessing methods are done, the proposed FDI system is applied to a 20-km pipeline in southern Iran (Goldkari-Binak pipeline) and a promising severity and location detectability (a correct classification rate of 92%) and a low False Alarm Rate (FAR) were achieved.     

An optimal level of dust explosion risk management: Framework and application

The current research provides guidance on the prevention and mitigation of dust explosion using a Quantitative Risk Management Framework (QRMF). Using concepts drawn from previous studies, the framework consists of three main steps: (i) a new combined safety management protocol, (ii) the use of DESC (Dust Explosion Simulation Code) and FTA (Fault Tree Analysis) to assess explosion consequences and likelihood, respectively, and (iii) application of the hierarchy of controls (inherent, engineered and procedural safety). QRMF assessment of an industrial case study showed that the original process was at high risk. DESC simulations and Probit equations determined the destructive percentages. FTAs revealed high probabilities of explosion occurrence; in addition, detailed individual and societal risks calculations were made, before and after the framework was applied. Based on the hierarchy of controls technique, the framework showed significant risk reduction to the point where the residual risk was acceptable for the process.     

Tools for an enhanced solvent properties screening in the early stages of pharmaceutical process development

The objective of this research was the implementation of tools for the evaluation of solvents trough property screening in the early stages of process development. An important feature of the tools is that the implementation of indexes, scores, or weights is avoided. Information already available from the literature was stored in a database in order to turn raw data into decision making information. As a result, a solvent radar chart, a solvent representation table, and a solvent telescopying tool were developed in an ASP.NET application. The synthesis of Propranolol was used as study case in order to explore the selection of solvents in the early stages of process development. The replacement of diethyl ether was possible in the extraction step, while solvent choices were detected for potential telescoping for extraction and crystallisation steps. Solubility was found as a critical parameter in telescoping analysis. The methodology proposed enhanced the view towards a more holistic perspective and a more robust solvent screening process. As a consequence, the next steps into solvent evaluation and process development can be reduced.     

A CFD based explosion risk analysis methodology using time varying release rates in dispersion simulations

A full probabilistic Explosion Risk Analysis (ERA) is commonly used to establish overpressure exceedance curves for offshore facilities. This involves modelling a large number of gas dispersion and explosion scenarios. Capturing the time dependant build up and decay of a flammable gas cloud size along with its shape and location are important parameters that can govern the results of an ERA. Dispersion simulations using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) are generally carried out in detailed ERA studies to obtain these pieces of information. However, these dispersion simulations are typically modelled with constant release rates leading to steady state results. The basic assumption used here is that the flammable gas cloud build up rate from these constant release rate dispersion simulations would mimic the actual transient cloud build up rate from a time varying release rate. This assumption does not correctly capture the physical phenomena of transient gas releases and their subsequent dispersion and may lead to very conservative results. This in turn results in potential over design of facilities with implications on time, materials and cost of a project.In the current work, an ERA methodology is proposed that uses time varying release rates as an input in the CFD dispersion simulations to obtain the fully transient flammable gas cloud build-up and decay, while ensuring the total time required to perform the ERA study is also reduced. It was found that the proposed ERA methodology leads to improved accuracy in dispersion results, steeper overpressure exceedance curves and a significant reduction in the Design Accidental Load (DAL) values whilst still maintaining some conservatism and also reducing the total time required to perform an ERA study.     

An evaluation of risk assessment framework for industrial accidents in India

Due to rapid industrialization, with high population density and constraints of land, it is expected that level of risks arising from the hazardous industries will increase in India in the coming decades. However, 30 years after the Bhopal accident (1984), except a few discrete regulations, there is as yet no integrated system for assessing and managing risks arising out of these hazardous industries in India. The gravity of aspects related to the management of industrial risk still remains crucially important. In particular, there is no standard guideline on risk analysis methodology, acceptability or tolerability criteria, nor is there an accident database or a risk reduction strategy for the areas where risk levels are already high. On top of this, there are technical and legislative gaps in the institutional framework to implement any of the above mentioned issues. With the backdrop of the Bhopal gas tragedy, the objective of this paper is therefore to evaluate the effectiveness of a comprehensive risk assessment framework for the emerging economy of India, in order to control and/or to reduce the risk level that exists. In this context, regulations and policies pertaining to industrial risk assessment were reviewed.     

Root causes of hydrocarbon leaks on offshore petroleum installations

Hydrocarbon leaks on offshore installations may result in severe consequences to personnel, to the environment and to assets. In order to prevent such leaks, it is crucial to understand their root causes. The objective of this paper is to study the circumstances of hydrocarbon leaks on the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS). In the study, all reported hydrocarbon leaks from process inventories on all offshore installations on the NCS, with an initial leak rate higher than 0.1 kg/s in the period 2008–2014, have been considered. This includes 78 hydrocarbon leaks, of which about 60% have occurred during manual intervention on normally pressurized systems. The dominating activity when leaks occur is preventive maintenance. A significant fraction of the leaks occur during the preparation for maintenance; such a preparation is typically carried out during the night shift. About half of the leaks are associated with wellhead area and manifolds, separation and compression systems. A substantial fraction of the leaks can be associated with verification faults, dominated by the failure to comply with procedural requirements that are needed to carry out independent verification.     

Validation of the UN test method N.5

Many substances react with water in such a way that flammable gases are formed. For transport issues this reaction may possess a considerable hazard especially if the cargo is wetted by rain or by water from other sources. In the UN Recommendations on the Transport of Dangerous Goods these kinds of problems are addressed. The UN test N.5 “Test method for substances which in contact with water emit flammable gases” corresponds to this hazard. Classification according to the test method is done by measurement of the gas evolution rate of the flammable gas by any suitable procedure. At BAM a gravimetric approach is used to measure the gas evolution rate. In this paper we present the evaluation of the apparatus by means of an absolute calibration routine utilizing a reaction where a known amount of gas is produced as well as the evaluation of important parameters influencing the gas evolution rate using different substances. It can be shown that the apparatus is capable of measuring absolute gas volumes as low as 6 mL with an acceptable error of about 17% as determined from the reaction of Mg with demineralized water.     

Analysis of underlying causes of investigated loss of containment incidents in Dutch Seveso plants using the Storybuilder method

In the Netherlands there are around 400 “Seveso” sites that fall under the Dutch Major Hazards Decree (BRZO) 1999. Between 2006 and 2010 the Dutch Labour Inspectorate's Directorate for Major Hazard Control completed investigations of 118 loss of containment incidents involving hazardous substances from this group. On the basis of investigation reports the incidents were entered in a tailor-made tool called Storybuilder developed for the Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment for identifying the dominant patterns of technical safety barrier failures, barrier task failures and underlying management causes associated with the resulting loss of control events. The model is a bow-tie structure with six lines of defence, three on either side of the central loss of containment event. In the first line of defence, failures in the safety barriers leading to loss of control events were primarily equipment condition failures, pre start-up and safeguarding failures and process deviations such as pressure and flow failures. These deviations, which should have been recovered while still within the safe envelope of operation, were missed primarily because of inadequate indication signals that the deviations have occurred. Through failures of subsequent lines of defence they are developing into serious incidents. Overall, task failures are principally failures to provide adequate technical safety barriers and failures to operate provided barriers appropriately. Underlying management delivery failures were mainly found in equipment specifications and provisions, procedures and competence. The competence delivery system is especially important for identifying equipment condition, equipment isolation for maintenance, pre-start-up status and process deviations. Human errors associated with operating barriers were identified in fifty per cent of cases, were mostly mistakes and feature primarily in failure to prevent deviations and subsequently recover them. Loss of control associated with loss of containment was primarily due to the containment being bypassed (72% of incidents) and less to material strength failures (28%). Transfer pipework, connections in process plant and relief valves are the most frequent release points and the dominant release material is extremely flammable. It is concluded that the analysis of a large number of incidents in Storybuilder can support the quantification of underlying causes and provide evidence of where the weak points exist in major hazard control in the prevention of major accidents.     

Inherently safer sustained casing pressure testing for well integrity evaluation

This paper presents the use of a model to predict sustained casing pressure (SCP), from early pressure buildup data, as a basis for inherently safer well integrity testing. Inherently safer principles aim to eliminate or reduce the hazards by design rather than by using protective features. SCP, a well integrity issue exhibited in many wells, is any measurable pressure that rebuilds after being bled down and attributable to causes other than artificially applied pressure or temperature fluctuations in the well. Intrusion of gas, resulting in SCP, can occur because of poor cement bond in the casing or cement deterioration. Gas entering the annulus migrates to the wellhead and represents a hazard due to increased wellhead pressure and the gas inventory. Compromised well integrity can have catastrophic consequences on both environmental and safety aspects.Most regulations require the monitoring, testing and, eventually, the elimination of SCP. However, test data analysis is predominantly qualitative and limited to arbitrary criteria. Due to the high percentage of wells that present SCP, accurate, safe and preferably fast testing methods are needed. This paper implements an analytical model, rooted in the transport processes and thermodynamics of the system, to predict pressure profiles and gas accumulation during SCP testing from early-time pressure buildup data. The amount of gas accumulated during different testing criteria, being 1) current practices and 2) early diagnostic by the analytical model, is calculated and compared. Results show that using the analytical model as a predictive tool, testing time is reduced significantly, thereby limiting the amount of gas accumulated and reducing the risk. This makes the testing procedure inherently safer as well as less time consuming.