Identifying design criteria for implementing inherent safety in chemical process industries part 2: Design mechanism

Abstract

Inherent safety concepts are common knowledge today, but accidents with similar characteristics do recur. Research on accident causes found that design errors, especially equipment failure, contribute the highest percentage of accidents. The development of inherent safety tools has been increasing at a positive pace, but only a small number of these tools are applicable to equipment design. Ample amounts of inherent safety tools are only suitable to be used at the early design stage. This amplifies the fact that inherent safety tools are still conceptual (e.g., change process routes, change safer materials). This is in contrast to the circumstances, where tools are expected to reinforce the inherent safety of equipment. The objective of this research is to identify design mechanism that can help trigger design thinking for implementation of inherent safety in the chemical process industry. To identify such a design mechanism, 526 cases were collected, and knowledge of the mechanism was extracted from design changes and presented in this research paper. The mechanisms were classified according to equipment and inherent safety keywords. The significant design mechanisms from the overall summation were listed (turbulence, change heat transfer fluid, continuous removal, large surface area, corrosion resistance, seamless joint, thin film, dividing wall, on demand, and double wall).