Analysis of Explosion Accidents in a Chemical Plant using STAMP, a Systematic Cause-and-effect Analysis Technique

Abstract

The process safety management system for chemical plants was introduced approximately 25 years ago. With the improvement in the safety management levels for the safe operation of the chemical plants, the number of serious industrial accidents has gradually decreased; however, increased damages have been observed when accidents do occur. The cause of accidents has also increased in cases where several factors, including social and cultural factors, are complexly related, in addition to facility and human factors. The need for an overall integrated systemic approach related to society, technology, and organization, and a sequential approach for finding the direct cause of accidents, is growing while analyzing the accidents. For this reason, foreign countries have introduced and applied a method to analyze accidents in an integrated manner from a systemic point of view; however, reports of cases or research results used in Korea. In this study, the case of explosion accidents, which occurred during a trial operation at a domestic chemical plant, was analyzed using Systems-Theoretic Accident Model and Processes, a systematic accident analysis technique, to reveal the primary cause, organizational, and operational problems, so that it can be used for future investigations when other accidents occur.