Process safety fire prevention

A fire prevention program is essential for the continued safe, successful, and profitable operation of a processing facility. Fire prevention is also a critical part of a process facility s overall loss prevention and control program and is closely linked to process safety and overall Health, Safety, and Environmental (HSE) programs. 

Li Z.X. 2003. Numerical simulation and parameter determination of nitrogen injection process in fire prevention and extinguishing in fully mechanized longwall top-coal goaf China Safety Science Journal, 13(5) 54-57. 

Process Safety Considerations. Unit optimization studies combined with dynamic simulations of the process may identify operating conditions that are unsafe regarding fire safety, equipment damage potential, and operating sensitivity. Several instances of fires and deflagrations in ethylene oxide production units have been reported in the past (160). These incidents have occurred in both the reaction cycle and ethylene oxide refining areas. Therefore, ethylene oxide units should always be designed to prevent the formation of explosive gas mixtures. 

Process Safety A discipline that focuses on the prevention and mitigation of fires, explosions, and accidental chemical releases at process facilities. Excludes classic worker health and safety issues involving working surfaces, ladders, protective equipment, etc. 

There are a variety of process safety risks one needs to assess with chemical processes. In general, these risks will lead to an evaluation of the potential for the process to have precipitous changes in temperature and or pressure that lead to secondary events such as detonations, explosions, over pressurizations, fires, and so forth. The most cost-effective way of avoiding these sorts of risks is through the adoption of inherent safety principles. Inherent safety principles are very similar to and complementary to pollution prevention principles, where one attempts to use a hierarchy of approaches to avoid and/or reduce the risk of an adverse event. The reader is referred elsewhere to a more complete treatment of this important area of process design. ... 

Other references include CCPS Guidelines for Engineering Design for Process Safety (Ref. 78) NFPA 68 Venting of Deflagrations (Ref. 79) NFPA 69 Explosion Prevention Systems (Ref. 80) NFPA 654 Prevention of Fire and Dust Explosions in the Chemical Dye, Pharmaceutical, and Plastics Industries (Ref. 81) and VDI 3673 Pressure Release of Dust Explosions (Ref. 82). 

General References Crowl and Louvar, Chemical Process Safety Fundamentals with Applications, 2d ed., Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, N.J., 2002, Chaps. 6 and 7. Crowl, Understanding Explosions, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, New York, 2003. Eckoff, Dust Explosions in the Process Industries, 2d ed., Butterworth-Heinemann, now Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1997. Kinney and Graham, Explosive Shocks in Air, 2d ed., Springer-Verlag, New York, 1985. Lewis and von Elbe, Combustion, Flames and Explosions of Gases, 3d ed., Academic Press, New York, 1987. Mannan, Lees Loss Prevention in the Process Industries, 3d ed., Elsevier, Amsterdam, 2005, Chap. 16 Fire, Chap. 17 Explosion. 

Most petroleum and chemical facilities rely on inherent safety and control features of the process, inherent design arrangements of the facility, and process safety ESD features as the prime loss prevention measures. These features are immediately utilized at the time of an incident. Passive and active explosion and fire protection measures are applicable after the initiating event has occurred and an adverse affect to the operation has been realized. These features are used until their capability has been exhausted or the incident has been controlled. 

Both ACC and SOCMA have programs to promote good practices among their member companies in the area of chemical process safety.59 In 1989, ACC developed the Responsible Care Process Safety Code60 to prevent fires, explosions, and accidental chemical releases. The code and its accompanying resource guidelines include a series of recommended management practices. 

Much of process safety deals with the prevention of catastrophic events, such as fires and explosions. This is accomplished by containing hazardous materials within the process system. The Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) has developed many Guidelines that assist companies in this effort (see Section 1.3 and References). 

On the other hand, there are a number of elements of fire prevention that overlap with elements of other programs. For example. Incident Investigation, Management of Change (MOC), Process Safety Information (PSI), and Process Hazard Analysis (PHA) input required for fire prevention can be derived from these same elements of the Process Safety Management (PSM) program. 

Most facilities already have an established Incident Investigation Program as part of the Process Safety Management program. These existing Incident Investigation Programs should incorporate fire prevention requirements. 

Overall plant-wide maintenance is an element of fire prevention. It is shared with the business need to maintain the production process, as well as with Process Safety Management and other health, safety, and environmental programs. 

The company or facility should make use of the services of an engineer knowledgeable and trained in fire protection. Ideally, a registered fire protection engineer should be available to review fire protection designs. Fire safety, loss prevention, or process safety engineers should assist in the analysis of hazards, selection of protection system specifications, approval of the system, and acceptance testing. 

Fire protection system impairment occurs when a fire alarm or supervisory system is shut-off, damaged, fails, or is otherwise taken out-of-service completely or in part. These out-of-service conditions are called impairments. While process monitoring, control, safety, and security-entry systems also provide protective functions, this element of the fire prevention program is only concerned with impairments to fire protection systems and equipment. An essential element of the fire prevention program is a procedure for fire protection impairment handling. 

Chemical plants—Eires and fire prevention. 2. Chemicals—Fires and fire prevention. I. American Institute of Chemical Engineers. Center for Chemical Process Safety. II. Title. 

At plants producing silicone and other elementorganic compounds and at other chemical facilities safety measures and fire prevention are an integral part of the production process. Apart from engineering instructions, it is as necessary to observe safety and fire prevention instructions, as well as... 

Cost-reduction projects are aimed at reducing the cost of production of an existing plant. The most common cost-reduction investments are for preventive maintenance, in which equipment is replaced, repaired, or cleaned after a planned interval and before the equipment deteriorates to the point where it could impact process performance or safety. Most preventive maintenance projects are small and are handled through the plant maintenance budget, but some can be very large, expensive projects requiring a major plant shutdown, for example, replacing the fired tubes in a main... 

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