Investigating the effect of inherent safety principles on system reliability in process design Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • 2018 Institution of Chemical Engineers During the last decade, inherent safety has emerged as an area of interest in both academic and industrial research. Various regulatory bodies have enforced the consideration of inherently safer design alternatives. This enforcement, however, may not serve the purpose of reducing the risk associated with process incidents due to the drawback of risk migration associated with inherent design philosophy. The philosophy of inherent safety has emerged from the need to reduce the consequence element of risk with an objective to prevent high consequence-low likelihood events. Thus, this philosophy is plagued with the drawback of risk migration where the lowering of consequence element can lead to an undesired increased likelihood element, leading to an overall increase in risk associated with the system. The likelihood element of risk of the system under consideration depends on the system reliability. The developed methodology involves quantifying inherent safety based on the design stage under consideration using a quantification technique that utilizes process data available during the specific stage of design. This is followed by determining reliability and availability of the system using reliability databases or static reliability modeling for various design alternatives considered during the specific design stage. Lastly, the trend observed between quantified inherent safety and reliability/availability is used to determine the required relationship between inherent safety and reliability. Thus, this developed methodology evaluates the possibility of increased risk due to lowered system reliability caused by the implementation of inherent design philosophy.

published proceedings

  • PROCESS SAFETY AND ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

author list (cited authors)

  • Ade, N., Liu, G., Al-Douri, A. F., El-Halwagi, M. M., & Mannan, M. S.

citation count

  • 25

complete list of authors

  • Ade, Nilesh||Liu, Guanlan||Al-Douri, Ahmad F||El-Halwagi, Mahmoud M||Mannan, M Sam

publication date

  • July 2018