Loss prevention minimum requirements

The heart of Dow s safety and loss prevention program is summarized in Minimum Requirements for Safety, Loss Prevention and Security. Like other elements of safety and loss prevention, Minimum Requirements is revised as experience indicates revision is desirable. 

The selection of materials to be used in design dictates a basic understanding of the behavior of materials and the principles that govern such behavior. If proper design of suitable materials of construction is incorporated, the eqiiipment should deteriorate at a uniform and anticipated gradual rate, which will allow scheduled maintenance or replacement at regular inteivals. If localized forms of corrosion are characteristic of the combination of materials and environment, the materials engineer should still be able to predict the probable life of equipment, or devise an appropriate inspection schedule to preclude unexpected failures. The concepts of predictive, or at least preventive, maintenance are minimum requirements to proper materials selection. This approach to maintenance is certainly intended to minimize the possibility of unscheduled production shutdowns because of corrosion failures, with their attendant possible financial losses, hazard to personnel and equipment, and resultant environmental pollution. 

The Hydrocarbon Processing Industry (HPI), has traditionally been reluctant to invest capital where an immediate direct return on the investment to the company is not obvious, as would any business enterprise. Additionally financial fire losses in the petroleum and related industries were relatively small up to about the 1950 s. This was due to the small size of facilities and the relatively low value of oil and gas to the volume of production. Until 1950, a fire or explosion loss of more than 5 million U. S. Dollars had not occurred in the refining industry in the USA. Also in this period, the capital intensive offshore oil exploration and production industry were only just beginning. The use of gas was also limited early in the century. Consequentially its value was also very low. Typically production gas was immediately flared or the well was capped and considered as an uneconomical reservoir. Since gas development was limited, large vapor explosions were relatively rare and catastrophic destruction from petroleum incidents was essentially unheard of. The outlays for petroleum industry safety features were traditionally the absolute minimum required by governmental regulations. The development of loss prevention philosophies and practices were therefore not effectively developed within the industry. 

Minimum Requirements contains a statement of policy and a list of specific requirements in three sections, Safety, Loss Prevention, and Security, plus a section on Other Related Safety, Loss Prevention and Security Requirements. The latter section addresses distribution emergency response, industrial hygiene and medical programs, material hazard identification, and product stewardship. 

Others may create, implement, and update the operating discipline. However, the plant manager or superintendent bears the responsibility for establishing and maintaining it. At Dow, this responsibility is formally spelled out in the company s Minimum Requirements for Safety, Loss Prevention and Security. ... 

People selected for the audit team must know safety and loss prevention standards and terminology. In addition, they must be familiar with Dow s Minimum Requirements and with management s expectations for safety and loss prevention performance. 

This standard defines the requirements and responsibilities for reactive chemicals management processes at all facilities, operations and businesses of The Dow Chemical Company, and to those facilities, operations and businesses of its subsidiaries and joint ventures over which Dow has management or shareholder control. The purpose of this standard is to define the minimum requirements necessary to prevent injury, loss or environmental damage from uncontrolled chemical reactions. It is expected that these requirements will be applied in such a way as to create competitive value for Dow. 

The fuel used for testing fuel permeability according to ECE-R 34 (ECE Regulation 34 Certification of Vehicles with respect to Fire Prevention) is either a test fuel or a commercial high-octane fuel. Before the actual test begins, the fuel tank is filled to 50% of its nominal content and pre-stored with full pressure compensation to ambient pressure at 40°C until it reaches a constant weight loss, but no longer than four weeks. This time is the minimum required for the plastic wall to swell with fuel [515]. 

The cubic feet of air to be stored represents the free air, at 14.7 psia, that must be packaged into the receiver above the minimum pressure required by the demand. In this case, the demand pressure is 90 psig, but an allowance for line losses and the necessary reducing valve pressure drop would prevent the use of any air stored below 110 psig. The receiver has a volume of (F) expressed in cubic feet. 

The major limitation of velocity transducers is their sensitivity to mechanical and thermal damage. Normal use can cause a loss of calibration and, therefore, a strict recalibration program is required to prevent data errors. At a minimum, velocity transducers should be re-calibrated every six months. Even with periodic re-calibration, however, velocity transducers are prone to provide distorted data due to loss of calibration. 

Apparatus Required. The need for more efficient columns and faster separations has led to the development of stationary phase packings with particles as small as 2 mm, operating at pressures as high as 10.000 psig (69 MPa), and with solvent How rales as low as I mL/min or less. This has in turn led to the development of detectors with internal volumes of only a few microtiters and special fillings and connectors with minimum dead volume to prevent band spreading and loss of resolution. These improvements in apparatus and technique have resulted itt an ability to... 

Taffanel held the view that the limit of propagation is caused by the existence of thermal losses and that, as a result, a certain minimum chemical reaction rate is required in order for combustion to occur. He further showed that under certain instrumental conditions, as the initial temperature is raised, increasingly diluted mixtures are capable of burning, and that in all the cases at the limit the combustion temperatures are practically the same. We have no information on the external reasons why Taffanel s work stopped. The internal, fundamental reasons which prevented him from developing an orderly and complete theory of combustion processes lay in the undeveloped... 

The procedural controls applicable for the preventive maintenance and repair of the hardware provide a mechanism for anticipating problems and, as a consequence, possible loss of data. Modem hardware usually requires minimum maintenance because electronic circuit boards, for example, are usually easily replaced and cleaning may be limited to dust removal. Diagnostic software is usually available from the supplier to check the performance of the computer system and to isolate defective integrated circuits. Maintenance procedures should be included in the organization s standard operating procedures. The availability of spare parts and access to qualified service personnel are important for the smooth operation of the maintenance program. 

Hydrogen excess and recirculation is costly, the gas carries away evaporated liquid, which has to be condensed in condensers with low heat transfer coefficients due to the presence of gas after that the gas must be recompressed and recycled to the reactor. Compression is an expensive unite operation and, moreover, in recirculation systems a purge is required to prevent accumulation of inert components this inevitably leads to hydrogen losses. Short switch over times must be feasible to reduce losses to off-spec products to a minimum. For the same reason also rapid startup and shut down methods must be developed. This also leads to long on-stream-times and a good productive use of the plant. 

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