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.     

工艺流程中氨泄漏事故后果分类研究

氨是重要的化工原料和产品,工艺流程中氨主要以氨气、液氨、氨溶液三种状态存在。氨气、液氨、氨溶液理化特性及危险特性不同,可能造成的事故后果类型不同,分别进行三种相态下氨泄漏的事故情景分析。氨气泄漏主要考虑蒸气云爆炸、中毒,液氨泄漏主要考虑沸腾液体扩展蒸气爆炸、蒸气云爆炸、中毒,氨溶液泄漏主要考虑中毒和腐蚀。运用半球模型和高斯模型计算某尿素企业液氨球罐泄漏的危害范围。半球泄漏模型计算方法较简单,但没有考虑氨本身性质及气象条件等因素;高斯模型计算过程较复杂,其计算结果与风速、大气稳定度等条件相关。该两种方法计算结果对预防氨泄漏事故发生和氨泄漏事故预警均具有一定参考意义,如何提高模拟分析的准确度是今后研究工作的重点。     

An index to account for safety and controllability during the design of a chemical process

Inherent safety is well known as the best technique of risk management, but its implementation is a challenge when there is a conflict with other factors, in particular with the process dynamic performance when the application of the minimization principle is considered. In this work, a combined safety-controllability index applicable during the design stage of a process is presented. The index accounts for the process controllability and the risk of the chemical inventory inside the process. The condition number is used to assess controllability, and the quantitative risk analysis technique is carried out to obtain a distance of affectation as a metric for individual risk. The index, based on a combination of normalized values of metrics for controllability and risk, was applied to three case studies dealing with distillation processes that separate flammable and toxic chemicals. The effect of relevant design variables such as column diameter and residence time was analyzed. It is shown how conflicts between safety and controllability exist for different values of those design variables and how a proper controllability-risk compromise can be identified with the use of the proposed index.     

丙烯氨氧化制丙烯腈反应器开车过程尾气燃爆危险性研究

丙烯直接氨氧化制丙烯腈工艺由于反应温度高,且反应器内的气相空间存在丙烯、丙烷、丙烯腈、乙腈、氧气、氮气等可燃性气体混合物,极易发生燃爆危险。为研究和评估该工艺装置反应器尾气的燃爆特性,采用11 L爆轰管测试在400℃、40 k Pa (G)工艺条件下,装置开车进料及反应过程中不同进料配比时反应器尾气组成的爆炸极限,并以此绘制爆炸极限三元相图,最终得到爆炸极限和极限氧体积分数。结果表明:反应器内可燃尾气的爆炸上限随氧气体积分数增加而升高,爆炸下限没有明显变化;在开车进料及反应过程中,反应器可燃尾气的极限氧体积分数LOC范围在8. 0%～8. 5%。因此,为避免反应器气相空间在开车过程中发生燃爆危险,需监测反应器内氧气体积分数,并设置氧体积分数报警值小于8. 0%。     

Team mental models and their potential to improve teamwork and safety: A review and implications for future research in healthcare

The importance of team mental models (TMMs) - team members’ shared and organized understanding of relevant knowledge - for teamwork and team-performance, particularly in high-risk industries, has been recognized for almost two decades. In healthcare, however, systematic investigations on the influence of TMM on teamwork and team-performance had yet to be conducted at the time of this review, despite many authors considering the concept to be useful for medical teams. The lack of measurement procedures appropriate for settings as complex and dynamic as, for example, the operating room, represents a major obstacle for empirical research in healthcare. We systematically reviewed empirical studies on TMMs aiming to identify methods that could be applied in healthcare. In particular, we analyzed the methods used, and situations in which TMMs have been investigated. The reviewed studies were sorted according to task and team characteristics. We discuss the results of this review with regard to characteristics of healthcare teams including anaesthesia teams and teams of ward nurses. Each of these examples represents a distinct teamwork setting (e.g. long- vs. short-lived teams) and hence requires a different approach to TMM measurement (e.g. focus on task-model vs. focus on team-model). Implications for study design, feasible measurement approaches, and questions for future research on TMMs in healthcare are discussed. In sum, our findings highlight the possible significance of TMM research in healthcare and its potential benefits for team-performance and, ultimately, patient safety.     

化工行业中小企业安全生产现状与对策——以江苏省某市为例

随着国民经济的不断发展,化工行业中小企业呈现出较强的增长势头,安全生产出现了许多新问题.通过对江苏省某市化工行业中小企业的全面调查和典型企业重点调研,对其安全生产基础状况、安全资金投入状况和事故发生情况进行了分析,并针对存在的具体问题,提出了进一步加强化工行业中小企业安全管理的对策建议.     

The relentless pursuit of perfectionism: A review of perfectionism in the workplace and an agenda for future research

The pursuit of perfectionism resonates with many individuals across workplaces resulting in a recent flurry of research on the topic. Although extant research has examined the costs and benefits of perfectionism at work, these efforts are scattered across multiple disciplines and utilize varying conceptualizations. As a result, we lack a coherent understanding of how perfectionism influences work behavior. To address this issue, we integrate the nascent but fragmented perfectionism at work literature, including both empirical findings and theoretical perspectives. We introduce and discuss a future research agenda that addresses not only the need to broaden understanding of perfectionism's antecedents, processes, and boundary conditions but also its multilevel applications and methodological limitations. Our review will enable organizational scholars to develop a deeper understanding of how perfectionism renders its influence in the workplace.     

Reconsidering autoignition in the context of modern process safety: Literature review and experimental analysis

Autoignition is regarded as the spontaneous combustion of a fuel without an apparent ignition source. With respect to fires and explosions in the process industries, the autoignition hazard is one that requires management and consideration. Despite the importance of understanding the autoignition hazard, the literature on the topic is often disappointingly sparse and inconsistent. Experimental methods don't adequately represent real-world conditions and are complicated by experimental error, invoking the need for a reconsideration of autoignition as it pertains to process safety. This work utilized the ASTM E659 method to study potential experimental error for the purpose of improving the process safety community's understanding of autoignition phenomena. Of interest to this study were effects of humidity and suspected occurrences of cool flames, two sources of error which have not been fully explained in the literature. For the fuels tested, results show that humidity has only a slight effect on overall autoignition behavior. However, this study's examination of cool flames suggests that they could be a common occurrence in this testing method. Analysis of these experiments show that cool flames can feature significant exothermic effects and are thus of concern from a perspective of risk management. In addition, this work proposes a novel criterion for a more conservative assessment of autoignition experiments, which results in less subjectivity of analysis.     

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.     

On the use of criteria based on the SMART acronym to assess quality of performance indicators for safety management in process industries

Management of safety, and barriers in particular, includes using information expressing performance, i.e. use of safety performance indicators. For this information to be useful, the indicators should demonstrate adequate quality. In other words, they should satisfy some predefined set of quality criteria. Without showing adequate quality, the indicators are generally unable to provide sufficient support for barrier management, which could result in poor decisions. In this article, the use of the SMART criteria is considered to assess the quality of safety performance indicators in process industries. SMART being an acronym for ‘specificity’, ‘measurability’ or ‘manageability’, ‘achievability’, ‘relevancy’ and ‘time-based’, covering five key aspects and criteria for assessing the quality of an indicator. A discussion on whether the indicators are able to demonstrate adequate quality by satisfying these criteria has been conducted. The finding is that all of the SMART criteria should be satisfied for a safety performance indicator to demonstrate acceptable quality and to be regarded as useful to support barrier management decision-making. However, it has also been observed that including the ‘M’ criterion in the assessment of quality is not needed. When all the other criteria are satisfied there is no way the conclusions could be misleading as a result of measurability or manageability aspects. Hence, for safety performance indicator quality, only four of the criteria are assessed and suggested for such situations to shorten the acronym to ‘STAR’. A key safety indicator used in downstream process facilities, i.e. ‘dangerous fluid overfilling events’, motivated from the 2005 Texas City refinery accident, is used to illustrate the situation. The indicator is also applied to another incident, the Buncefield oil storage depot's accident in 2005, to provide a broader context for using it. The findings in this article could also be applied beyond the context studied. This means that, despite focusing on safety indicators in the process industries, the findings are considered as relevant and applicable to other types of performance indicators and to other energy industries.     

Towards an alternative criterion for the shipping safety of activated carbons: Part 4. The role of times to ignition

To the previously developed and implemented new criterion for the shipping safety of activated carbons is added a consideration of ignition times. It is shown that there is considerable support for the view that in the past shipments of such materials deemed on the basis of the IMCO/ISO test procedures to be subcritical have actually been supercritical, but that the long ignition times, exceeding voyage times, have prevented fire from developing.     

氯胺消毒管网“三氮”与总氯变化的预测模型

为探讨氯胺消毒供水管网的水质问题,建立了一种试验规模的氯胺消毒供水管网水质模拟系统。基于质量守恒原理和双Monod方程建立了该系统的硝化与氯胺衰减动力学耦合模型,并通过试验对该模型进行了验证。模型中的部分参数采用非线性多项式回归方法进行估计。应用该模型确定了活性氨氧化菌(AOB)和亚硝酸盐氧化菌(NOB)的数量。该模型对管网模拟系统内氨氮、硝酸盐氮与总氯的预测值与实测值基本一致,但对亚硝酸盐氮的预测值与实测值存在较大偏差。