Abstract
The present study is motivated by the many accidents in process plants that could be avoided or at least attenuated by inherent safety philosophy. The objective of this article is to understand the real constraints to Inherent Safety Philosophy (ISF) application. It contemplated an evaluation of the limitations and difficulties of applying the inherent safety techniques to process plants based on a specific case study in which some the potential risks to the plant were evaluated and some modifications were advised instead. From this case study, it was possible to extrapolate to a generic case in a representative manner. The greatest difficulties encountered when applying ISF were mapped. The real limitations of using ISF in process plants were related to organizational, technical and economic aspects. The consequently, to focus on finding solutions for them.
Highlights
There are many accidents in process plants that occur every year
The current main limitations and difficulties of the application of qualitative Inherent Safety techniques observed during this case study were related to three aspects: Economical, Technological and Organizational
Project engineers and business managers remain reluctant to invest in new technologies for a small percentage of cost reduction, in case of unforeseen challenges and difficulties that prevent or delay the achievement of project results. New technologies, such as the case of Higee equipment, have great difficulty in being well accepted since the reduction in cost of a single equipment might not be significant when compared to the whole project in which it is inserted
Summary
There are many accidents in process plants that occur every year. It can be observed, that many of them could have been avoided had there been some way to prevent them directly in their sources, that is, to eliminate the fact that generated them. The Health and Safety Executive examined 34 accidents that were the direct result of control and safety system failures in many different industries They found that 15% of accidents were caused by faulty design and implementation.[1] For this reason, the inherent safety often acts to eliminate the risk completely and to a level considered acceptable. It would be obvious the justification for implementing this solution that can be understood as preventive rather than corrective when compared to traditional risk mitigation strategies. Inherent safety plays an important role in the design of safer processes, identifying sustainability based on materials, the handling of critical operation conditions, the operation of large inventories, and the management of process complexity in the process design and plant life cycle.[6]
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