scholarly journals Investigation and Analysis of a Hazardous Chemical Accident in the Process Industry: Triggers, Roots, and Lessons Learned

Processes ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 477
Author(s):  
Jianhao Wang ◽  
Gui Fu ◽  
Mingwei Yan
Keyword(s):  
Vinyl Chloride ◽  
Chemical Industry ◽  
Safety Management ◽  
Safety Evaluation ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Design Stage ◽  
Practical Procedure ◽  
Chemical Company ◽  
Hazardous Chemical ◽  
Chemical Accident

This paper performs an in-depth investigation and analysis on a catastrophic hazardous chemical accident involving domino effects in China based on an emerging accident causation model—the 24Model. The triggers and roots of the incident from the individual and organizational levels have been identified and several useful lessons have been summarized to avoid similar mistakes. This accident began with a leak of vinyl chloride caused by the failure of the gas holder’s bell housing and the operators’ mishandling. Leaked vinyl chloride was ignited by a high-temperature device in the process of diffusion and the fire quickly spread to the illegally parked vehicles. Several organizations were involved in this accident, and the chemical company should bear the main responsibility for it, and shall establish and implement an effective safety management system in its organizational structure and staffing, facilities management, hazards identification, emergency disposal, etc., to improve safety performance in a systematic way. Enterprises in the chemical industry park shall enhance the communication to clarify major hazard installations in their domains, and conduct regular safety evaluation for the plant as the external environment changed. Government agencies shall plan the layout of the chemical industry park scientifically and ensure safety starts with the design stage. The case study provides a practical procedure for accident investigation and analysis, and thus, preventive measures can be made according to the various causations at different levels.

scholarly journals Changes in Risk in Medium Business Plating and Paint Manufacturing Plants following the Revision of the Korean Chemical Accident Prevention System

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (22) ◽  
pp. 11982
Author(s):  
Hyo Eun Lee ◽  
Min-Gyu Kim ◽  
Seok J. Yoon ◽  
Da-An Huh ◽  
Kyong-Whan Moon
Keyword(s):  
High Risk ◽  
Risk Analysis ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Safety Management ◽  
Risk Groups ◽  
Manufacturing Plants ◽  
Hazardous Chemical ◽  
Chemical Accident ◽  
Medium Risk ◽  
Changes In Risk

Chemical accidents can occur anywhere. The need for chemical management in Korea was realized following the 2012 Gumi hydrofluoric acid accident in 2012. The Chemicals Control Act was enacted in 2015. This system evaluates the risks (high, medium, low) and consequent safety management at all plants that handle hazardous chemical substances. However, the system was criticized as excessive when most plants were designated high-risk without considering their size. Thus, laboratories and hospitals handling very small quantities were subject to regulation. Accordingly, in 2021 Korea revised the system to include off-site consequence analyses and a Korean-style risk analysis. Plants handling very small quantities, such as laboratories and hospitals, were exempt from regulation. In this study, changes in risk were examined for four medium-sized plating and paint manufacturing plants. Under the previous system, all four factories were judged as high-risk groups. In particular, the paint manufacturing plant A, which has an underground storage tank, received a medium risk like the plating plant C, although the possibility of a chemical accident was lower than that of other plants. However, in the changed system, all plants were changed to the low-risk group. In the Korean-style risk analysis, it is possible to see at a glance what is lacking in the plants, such as cooperation between local residents and local governments and the construction of safety facilities according to the type of accident scenario. The revised system is a reasonable regulation for medium business plants.

scholarly journals Changes in Risk in Medium Business Plants Following Revision of the Korean Chemical Accident Prevention System, Focusing on Plating and Paint Manufacturing Industries

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyo Eun Lee ◽  
Min-Gyu Kim ◽  
Seok J. Yoon ◽  
Da-An Huh ◽  
Kyong Whan Moon
Keyword(s):  
High Risk ◽  
Risk Analysis ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Safety Management ◽  
Medium Size ◽  
Manufacturing Companies ◽  
Chemical Management ◽  
Hazardous Chemical ◽  
Chemical Accident ◽  
Local Residents

: Chemical accidents can occur anywhere. The need for chemical management in Korea was realized following the 2012 Gumi hydrofluoric acid accident in 2012. The Chemicals Control Act was enacted in 2015. This system evaluates the risks (high, medium, low) and consequent safety management at all plants that handle hazardous chemical substances. However, the system was criticized as excessive when most plants were designated high-risk without considering their size. Thus, laboratories and hospitals handling very small quantities were subject to regulation. Accordingly, in 2021 Korea revised the system to include off-site consequence analyses and a Korean-style risk analysis. Plants handling very small quantities, such as laboratories and hospitals, were exempt from regulation. In this study, plating and paint manufacturing companies, which were classified as high-risk in the previous system, even though they were medium-size business plants, were re-evaluated as low-risk plants. In the Korean-style risk analysis, it is possible to see at a glance what is lacking in the plants, such as cooperation between local residents and local governments and the construction of safety facilities according to the type of accident scenario. The revised system is a reasonable regulation for medium business plants.

scholarly journals Existing problems and measures in safety management of chemical engineering

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuepeng Liu ◽  
Zhigang Zhang ◽  
Quan Yang ◽  
Qiang Zhang ◽  
Zhen’an Liu
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Chemical Industry ◽  
Chemical Engineering ◽  
Safety Management ◽  
Pollution Prevention ◽  
Construction Process ◽  
Technical Problems ◽  
Engineering Construction ◽  
Technical Requirements ◽  
Management Personnel

For a country, the industry is a very important system, the embodiment of the country's comprehensive national strength, the country's economic development level and the development of science and technology level has direct impact on industry. The development of chemical industry also has great impetus to the national economic development. The technical requirements for chemical engineering are particularly high. Because of the danger of the chemical itself, safety becomes the first thing to notice in the construction process. In order to prevent the occurrence of danger in the actual construction process, the safety of chemical engineering construction is made, and the effective safety management is the most critical step. A reliable safety management is the guarantee for the smooth construction of the construction, so the early safety management becomes the key to the development of the chemical industry. Chemical engineering is an extremely complex and changeable system, and the kinds of problems involved are very many, which requires the construction personnel to pay more attention to ensure the safety. In order to implement the safety management measures in the process of chemical engineering construction, it is necessary for the management personnel to strictly control the whole construction process. In case of any problem, we should deal with it in a timely manner and pay more attention to the details. We should pay attention to fire prevention, pollution prevention and anti-explosion prevention. Technical personnel should pay more attention to technical problems and eliminate safety hazards. The construction company must also strengthen the personal quality of the project management personnel and other issues. It is necessary to examine personal responsibility and safety awareness and avoid unnecessary losses caused by various construction safety issues to the company[1].

scholarly journals A New Semi-Quantitative Process Safety Assessment Method and Its Application for Fluorochemical Industry

Processes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 1695
Author(s):  
Guangpei Cong ◽  
Duhui Lu ◽  
Mei Liu ◽  
Qi Wang ◽  
Wei Yu
Keyword(s):  
Chemical Industry ◽  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Safety Management ◽  
Assessment Method ◽  
Risk Identification ◽  
Main Line ◽  
Process Safety ◽  
Case Comparison ◽  
Improved Model ◽  
Risk Processes

Traditional hazard and operability analysis (HAZOP) is one of the most widely applied methods for process safety management in process enterprises. Due to its principles based on the conservative and qualitative judgment, it often leads to too conservative risk identification results for the fluorine chemical industry usually with high-risk processes to keep the continuity of production. Most of improved quantitative and semi-quantitative methods are based on the layer of protection analysis (LOPA) to resolve the over-conservative problem of traditional HAZOP with the database of LOPA. However, the improved model, taking LOPA as the main line and HAZOP only as the provider of scenarios and influencing factors, is limited to the fact that LOPA can only analyze complete and independent protection layers (IPLs). Therefore, in order to realize the quantitative or semi-quantitative analysis of disaster causes and consequences, a new semi-quantitative HAZOP method takes HAZOP as the main line to integrate LOPA, F&EI (fire and explosion index) for quantitatively calculating the reduction factors, probability on failure demand (PFD) of general protection layers (GPLs) and PFD of IPLs. With the case comparison of fluorine chemical industry, it is proved that this new method can effectively improve the problem that traditional HAZOP are too conservative in complex scenarios.

Design to First Deployment: Pressure-Activated Sliding Sleeve for Single-Trip Completion

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Ashutosh Dikshit ◽  
Amrendra Kumar ◽  
Glenn Woiceshyn
Keyword(s):  
Computer Aided Design ◽  
Failure Modes ◽  
Cost Savings ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Design Stage ◽  
Coiled Tubing ◽  
Side Door ◽  
Safety Risks ◽  
Sand Control ◽  
The Cost

Summary Interest is high in a method to reliably run single-trip completions without involving complex/expensive technologies (Robertson et al. 2019). The reward for such a design would be reduced rig time, safety risks, and completion costs. As described herein, a unique pressure-activated sliding side door (PSSD) valve was developed and field tested to open without intervention after completion is circulated to total depth (TD) and a liner hanger and openhole isolation packers are set. A field-provensliding-sleeve door (SSD) valve that required shifting via a shifting tool run on coiled tubing, slickline (SL), or wireline was upgraded to open automatically after relieving tubing pressure once packers (and/or a liner hanger) are set. This PSSD technology, which is integrable to almost any type of sand control screen, is equipped with a backup contingency should the primary mechanism fail to open. Once opened, the installed PSSDs can be shifted mechanically with unlimited frequency. The two- or three-position valve can be integrated with inflow control devices (ICDs) (includes autonomous ICDs/autonomous inflow control valves) and allows mechanical shifting at any time after installation to close, stimulate or adjust ICD settings. After a computer-aided design stage to achieve all the operational/mechanical requirements, prototypes were built and tested, followed by field installations. The design stage provided some challenges even though the pressure-activation feature was being added to a mature/proven SSD technology. Prototype testing in a full-scale vertical test well proved valuable because it revealed failure modes that could not have appeared in the smaller-scale laboratory test facilities. Lessons learned from the first field trial helped improve onsite handling procedures. The production logging tool run on first installation confirmed the PSSDs with ICDs opened as designed. The second field installation involved a different size and configuration, in which PSSDs with ICDs performed as designed. The unique two- or three-position PSSD accommodates any type of sand control or debris screen and any type of ICD for production/injection. The PSSD allows the flexibility to change ICD size easily at the wellsite. Therefore, this technology can be used in carbonate as well as sandstone wells. Wells that normally could not justify the expense of existing single-trip completion technologies can now benefit from the cost savings of single-trip completions, including ones that require ICD and stimulation options.

The Importance of Inherently Safer Processes to Site Security

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pamelyn G. Lindsey ◽  
Dennis C. Hendershot
Keyword(s):  
Water Treatment ◽  
Chemical Industry ◽  
Safety Management ◽  
Aqueous Ammonia ◽  
Methyl Isocyanate ◽  
Inherent Safety ◽  
Process Safety ◽  
In Situ Generation ◽  
Terrorist Events

Inherently safer processes (ISP) have become increasingly more important in recent years, specifically since the terrorist events of September 2001. New emphasis on site security and vulnerability has made it imperative for the chemical industry to view new and existing processes in a creative way. The tools available in designing an inherently safer process will allow industry to make these changes. “We ought, when possible, to be removing hazards rather than controlling them” (Kletz [1]). The concepts of inherent safety will be reviewed with specific examples with site security implications. For example the in-situ intermediate generation of methyl isocyanate (MIC) is a striking example of the concept of minimization and is of particular interest, since after the Bhopal incident, large quantities of MIC would be a target for terrorism. Other examples such as in-situ generation of phosgene use of aqueous ammonia instead of anhydrous, and elimination of chlorine cylinders in water treatment will be discussed with site security implications. The concepts used to create these inherently safer designs can then be integrated into existing process safety management programs to improve the overall safety of the chemical industry.

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