Safety and Maintenance

There are a number of important safety considerations regarding the use of atomic absorption equipment. These center around the use of highly flammable acetylene, as well as the use of a large flame, and the possible contamination of laboratory air by combustion products. 

All precautions relating to compressed gas cylinders must be enforced—the cylinders must be secured to an immovable object, such as a wall they must have approved pressure regulators in place they must be transported on approved carts etc. Tubing and connectors must be free of gas leaks. There must be an independently vented fume hood in place over the flame to take care of toxic combustion products. Volatile flammable organic solvents and their vapors, such as ether and acetone, must not be present in the lab when the flame is lit. 

Precautions should be taken to avoid flashbacks. Flashbacks result from improperly mixed fuel and air, such as when the flow regulators on the instrument are improperly set or when air is drawn back through the drain line of the premix burner. Manuals supplied with the instruments when they are purchased give more detailed information on the subject of safety. 

Finally, periodic cleaning of the burner head and nebulizer is needed to ensure minimal noise level due to impurities in the flame. Scraping the slot in the burner head with a sharp knife or razor blade to remove carbon deposits and removing the burner head for the purpose of cleaning it in an ultrasonic cleaner bath are two commonplace maintenance chores. The nebulizer should be dismantled, inspected, and cleaned periodically to remove impurities that may be collected there. 

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Job Specific Job-specific topics include training on new or revised operating, safety and maintenance procedures related to the toll. It could include emergency response plan training or laboratory technician training as well if those procedures were changed. 

The Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) is based on the systematic analysis of failure modes for each element of a system, by defining the failure mode and the consequences of this failure on the integrity of that system. It was first used in the 1960s in the field of aeronautics for the analysis of the safety of aircraft [15]. It is required by regulations in the USA and France for aircraft safety. It allows assessing the effects of each failure mode of a system s components and identifying the failure modes that may have a critical impact on the operability safety and maintenance of the system. It proceeds in four steps ... 

Hydrothermal oxidation (especially SCWO) occurs in a pressurized vessel, thus requiring stringent safety and maintenance operations. In addition, SCWO is better suited for processing solutions and slurries, whereas solid wastes require sizing and pretreatment. 

The process safety and maintenance departments may have interest in the quality of completed hot work permits, whereas the business leader may not have use for that information. 

Figure 6 shows our plan. According to the HTTR project, HTTR is being operated to accumulate the HTGR operation experience and to prepare the safety and maintenance database. Operational and test results obtained with the HTTR can contribute to the R D programme of HTGR development in other countries USA, France and others. 

Chemical Co. s methyl acetate reactive distillation process and processes for the synthesis of fuel ethers are classic success stories in reactive distillation. Improvements for the Eastman process are very high five-times lower investment and five-times lower energy use than the traditional process. However, combining reaction and distillation is not always advantageous and in some cases it may not even be feasible. The methyl acetate process based on reactive distillation has fewer vessels, pumps, flanges, valves, piping and instruments. This is an advantage also in terms of safety and maintenance. However, a reactive distillation column itself is more complex (multiple unit operations occur within one vessel) and thus more difficult to control and operate. It is thus not possible to make unique conclusions. 

The plant overhead include management and payroll overhead that cam be related with the operating power OL, as well as safety and maintenance fees that can be related with the fixed-capital. For the first we may take 60% from the charges Involved in direct costs, while for the second 2.5% from fixed-capital. So we have approximately... 

A grass roots plant needs a whole lot of other offsites in addition to the utility production or conditioning units described in this chapter some of these offsites form part of the infrastructure, others are associated with administration, safety and maintenance. The list below can no doubt be enlarged in specific cases ... 

Raouf, A.S.I. 2004. Productivity enhancement using safety and maintenance integration An overview. Kybemetes, Vol. 33, Issue 7. 

Approximately one-fourth of all operating presses in the United States have a mechanical-type clutch (full revolution) which presents difficult and costly safety and maintenance repairs. If a mechanical clutch on a press is clicking while the flywheel or the bull gear is rotating, this indicates a potential problem. Immediate repairs should be made to safeguard the press operators. If not, the clutch pin may drop in, causing an unintended press cycle with possibly disastrous results. 

Don t downplay the importance of the post-trip inspection. This is where the driver completes his or her DVIR, identifying the areas that need to be looked at before the vehicle goes on the road again. Many safety and maintenance professionals view the post-trip as being more important than the pretrip. The DVIR is maintained by the motor carrier for a minimum of 90 days from the date the written report was prepared. 

For safety and maintenance purposes, it is essential to know exactly where all the salt, fission products, and uranium are. As a consequence, the interactions of salt and graphite were carefully investigated. 

Inert and purge pipes and vessels for safety and maintenance purposes... 

Working hours are maiidy nine to five-thirty, with local variations. Those involved in research often work in a flexible environment and longer hours may be necessary at certain stages of a project. For practical reasons, safety and maintenance work on hospital eqnipment is likely to be performed ont of hours. The workplace may be an office, laboratory, workshop, hospital or clinic, or more likely a combination of the above. 

The authors of this paper believe that one of the main reasons for such a situation is the missing links between the maintenance discipline and other disciplines, especially technical safety. The various analyses done by safety and maintenance engineers often do not have clear linkage and can hardly be implemented in the practical sense. Moreover, a general inconsistency in Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) may often be observed due to the overlapping data of maintenance criticality analysis and technical safety analysis. 

Figure 9. PS as a link between technical safety and maintenance.

The audit activities often find deficiencies in the completion of maintenance activities and missing links between equipment and the safety barriers (Ratnayake et al 2012). It is essential to know the links and interconnections between maintenance and technical safety disciplines. The safety analyses and identification of safety functions should be transferred to the maintenance engineers in order to classify specific equipment accordingly. Results of safety-related analyses performed by technical safety engineers should be prioritized over results of maintenance criticality analyses. Clear links should be established in order to ensure that one discipline s output can be used as input for other disciplines. The mandatory Performance Standards (PS) required by the PSA may be seen as a potential major link between safety and maintenance disciplines (Fig. 9). 

ISO 262626 does not make a focus on maintainability a for example railway safety standards, but the relation between safety and maintenance is addressed. 

There must be a person designated with responsibility for both job safety and compliance with regulations. This person must assume responsibility for compliance with existing regulations and for the implementation and enforcement of company rules and policies. He or she must oversee the qualification of operators/drivers and the care, safety, and maintenance of the company s fleet. 

Figure 6.1 Ultracentrifuge. Because they are so expensive, centrifuges are frequently shared by more than one research group. Safety and maintenance procedures may therefore be less rigorous than if one lab had sole responsibility for their use.

Training on the proper procedure used to report vehicle defects is vital to the success of a fleet safety and maintenance program. A vehicle that has defects needs to be taken out of service temporarily until maintenance personnel can fix the problem and restore the vehicle to proper working condition. By reporting vehicle defects in a timely manner, employees help ensure that vehicles are repaired and back on the road without major delays. 

Safety and maintenance departments share the same goal zero defects. The departments must work together to repair damaged vehicles prior to their release. It is vital to the success of the company that the safety and maintenance departments create conditions that allow repairs that make vehicles safe. This means working together for the best interest of the company. 

How could 4 layers of protection be defeated The simple answer is that there was a common cause failure that was not factored into the safety calculations and failure to manage the plant according to intended safety and maintenance practices. The individual failures were ... 

Throughout the plant lifecycle there are many models that maintain certain view(s) about the plant lifecycle. The model of one stage could be part of the user objects in other stages within the plant lifecycle. For example, plant design model elements representing the P ID can be used to formulate operation, safety, and maintenance models. This means that the model elements of the plant design model are in fact metamodel elements for the plant operation model. 

Become familiar with and follow the manufacturer s operation, safety, and maintenance instructions. 

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