Ensuring emergency planning & response meet the minimum Process Safety Management (PSM) standards requirements

When incidents happen and the consequences are not mitigated effectively, one of the indicated failures consists of ineffective emergency planning and response (EPR). EPR is an important aspect of the Process Safety Management (PSM) Standards, and the guidelines are stated in CFR 1910.119 (n) which explains the minimum elements of emergency response and procedures in handling emergency or small releases. Despite its implementation in 1992, CSB finds ineffective EPR system in certain accidents such as the Missouri DPS Enterprise Chlorine Gas Release accident in 2002. DPS EPR failed in planning on location of emergency equipment and accessibility. Many other accidents have occurred throughout the decade and even though organizations have their own EPR system, there are issues in meeting minimum PSM requirements. There also exists the problem of self-regulatory policies practiced by organizations, which might not meet these requirements as well. To help organizations meet these minimum requirements, the purpose of this paper is to present a structured and easy technique to plan and implement EPR as per PSM requirements. A model has been developed based on this technique, and its application has been tested as a case study in a refinery in Malaysia and discussed throughout this report. The results reflected the feasibility of this model as it helped users to track and manage documents efficiently. This technique has the potential to help users to manage EPR better and to reduce adverse impacts to people, environment and assets.     

企业安全性评价模糊数学方法研究

根据船舶行业的特点。建立安全指标体系，并应用改进式层次分析法对各指标权重处理。运用模糊评判模型。用三角形隶属函数确定隶属度，对企业现状进行安全评价。     

层次分析法在矿山水环境质量评价中的应用

层次分析法是一种定性和定量相结合的、系统化、层次化的分析方法,是决策者按照人类决策过程的“分解-判断-综合”的思想特点,对复杂系统的决策思维过程模型化、数量化的过程。通过分析和研究,从水质和水量两方面入手,建立了矿山水环境质量评价指标体系,应用层次分析法将各层次权重综合,计算出各层次要素对总目标的组合权重,最终确定影响矿山水环境的主要因素为矿化度、pH值、矿山疏排水量以及有机污染指标。     

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.     

Enhancing regional process safety management

As industrial operations expand, major incidents continue to affect people, damage facilities, and impact the environment. In the last 20 years, about 50% of these incidents occurred in facilities that had implemented some form of Process Safety Management (PSM) and 50% came about in smaller facilities that did not include such planning (Demichela et al., 2004). The objective of this article is to use PSM principles to create practical recommendations at the regional level, to complement those previously developed for singular facilities. This article compares Strathcona County Emergency Service (SCES) in Alberta with Technical Standards & Safety Authority (TSSA) in Ontario, with respect to safety, facility licensing, permit requirements, risk assessment procedures and land use planning aspects to determine PSM enhancements for SCES. Furthermore, for a better overview, two supplemental provincial organisations in Alberta, namely Alberta Boiler Safety Association (ABSA) and Safety Codes Council (SCC), were also considered. We proposed that SCES could develop more detailed facility-specific licensing procedures, auditing, and inspection. SCES could also provide details of accredited organisations that carry out inspections and audits on their behalf. When reviewing the quantitative risk assessment processes for SCES and TSSA, we recommend that SCES should update their probability data sources used in their cumulative risk assessment study. Based on the authors’ experience and gathered data, the use of additional facility practices such as safety management system, internal audits, and checklists can enhance incident prevention.     

Effect of turbulence spatial distribution on the deflagration index: Comparison between 20 L and 1 m3 vessels

In this work, the effect of spatial distribution and values of the turbulent kinetic energy on the pressure-time history and then on the explosion parameters (deflagration index and maximum pressure) was quantified in both the standard vessels (20 L and 1 m³).The turbulent kinetic energy maps were computed in both 20 L and 1 m³ vessels by means of CFD simulations with validated models. Starting from these maps, the turbulent flame propagation of cornstarch was calculated, by means of the software CHEMKIN. Then, the pressure-time history was evaluated and from this, the explosion parameters.Calculations were performed for three cases: not uniform turbulence level as computed from CFD simulations, uniform turbulence level and equal to the maximum value, uniform profile and equal to the minimum value. It was found that the cornstarch in the 20 L vessel get variable classes (St-1, St-2, St-3) with respect to the 1 m³ (St-1). However, simulations performed on increasing the ignition delay time, shown that the same results can be attained only using 260 ms as ignition delay time in the 20 L vessel.     

Decision-making on process risk of Arctic route for LNG carrier via dynamic Bayesian network modeling

An increasing number of ships have chosen the suitable route to transport in Arctic waters during summer. Seeking a suitable model for risk decision-making in route planning is a necessary research topic at present. Due to its complex natural environment, there is significant uncertainty regarding ship navigation safety in Arctic waters. The process risk-based decision-making method to support route planning is established based on the dynamic Bayesian network (DBN) risk assessment model for LNG carrier collision with ice or obstacles in Arctic waters. The decision-making process for ship navigation is dynamically associated with time. Therefore, a Markov Chain (MC) is built for each dynamic node in Bayesian belief network (BBN) to realize DBN associated risk assessment, which is called process risk and is applied to decision-making. Three possible routes for ships sailing from the Vikitsky Strait to the Long Strait in Arctic waters were selected in conjunction with the objective daily change data of wind speed, temperature, wave height, and ice condition. Simulations for risk decision-making in the ship navigation process are performed. Application examples show that the ship selected either ROUTE2 (Vikitsky Strait – Laptev Sea – Sannikov Strait – Eastern Siberian Sea – Long Strait) or ROUTE3 (Vikitsky Strait – Laptev Sea – Proliv Dmitriya Lapteva – Eastern Siberian Sea – Long Strait) in August as the best navigable route.     

小城镇环境承载力评价——以江苏省铜山县为例

在大量收集铜山县近几年统计资料的基础上,根据区域环境承载力指标体系的构建原则,从人口、自然资源、生态环境和社会经济状况等方面构建指标体系。共选取指标39个,其中发展类指标27个,限制类指标12个。按照指标体系的层次结构构造判断矩阵,采用层次分析法确定指标的权重。根据铜山县“十五”期间相关部门的统计数据和监测数据,以及生态县建设的相关指标,并结合各类指标的国际国内标准和江苏省的平均标准确定指标的现状值和指标阈值。采用环境承载力相对剩余率法计算2000年-2005年的环境承载力相对剩余率。结果表明,在这一期间,铜山县的综合环境承载力整体处于超载状态,其中人口控制、第三产业发展、矿产资源以及工业废水废气的治理等指标发展较好。不足之处体现在经济的发展还是建立在高能耗、高污染物排放的基础上,人均自然资源量偏低,高新技术产业占规模以上工业比重较低,科研教育以及环保投入尚不足等。随着环境治理投入的加大,综合环境承载力呈上升趋势,环境状况逐渐好转。根据评价结果,结合铜山县的发展现状,从优化产业结构、加强污染防治以及加强生态建设和法律法规建设等方面提出提高铜山县环境承载力的途径和对策。     

国内外废纸造纸废水零排放工艺研究及运行实例

废纸造纸废水零排放可以大量降低新鲜水用量,避免废水排放和节约废水处理成本,但是采用全封闭存在系统腐蚀、会产生有气味化合物、增加腐浆生成、降低留着率、生成沉淀、引起运行故障、降低产品质量等风险。在此以国内外废纸造纸企业废水零排放运行实例,研究其工艺特点及水质参数,为废纸造纸企业提供稳定和经济的废水零排放技术,最终实现节能、减排、增效的目标。