Search

Due to the large quantities of hazardous materials stored and processed, chemical and process plants may be attractive targets for security attacks (e.g. terrorist attacks) that can severely impact workers, the population, the surrounding environment, and property. According to well established Security Vulnerability Assessment (SVA) and Security Risk Assessment (SRA) methodologies, the shooting threat to a chemical and process facility shall be investigated; however, the development of adequate damage models in case of shooting attacks using small/light weapons to industrial equipment units is still lacking. In the present study, an extended set of perforation models was retrieved from the literature and was validated against experimental data from perforation tests. The most reliable perforation models for soft core projectiles were selected and used to assess the vulnerability to perforation of atmospheric tanks storing hazardous materials for two reference projectiles enabling the identification of inherent safety threshold values for perforation thickness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the framework of design and installation of fire detection and fire alarm system in buildings, when high ceilings are involved, it is likely to run into the limits of the more common standards. Several regulations fix a ceiling height limit beyond which heat, smoke, and combustion gas detectors should not be mounted. Among the available technologies, the aspirating smoke detection (ASD) systems have the highest limit (i.e., 40 m according to BS 5839-1:2017). Nevertheless, this technology should not be used when processes that yield smoke, fumes, dust, etc., are present, and an alternative type of fire detector needs to be employed. This is due to the necessity to avoid false alarms, which is critical for successful fire detection and alarm systems. The concomitance of these two situations, i.e., dusty environments and high ceiling height, is not unusual in the industrial sectors. To investigate it, the state-of-the-art solution is adopting the principles of Fire Safety Engineering (FSE). The FSE is based on calculations that consider the conservation of mass and energy and permit to predict several crucial quantities such as the smoke temperature, smoke volume (and layer height), and species concentrations resulting from a fire of a given size (ISO/TS 13447:2013). In this work, a series of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations were conducted to assess the performances of a fire detection system composed of heat detectors installed at heights up to 20 m larger than the standard limit. The characteristics of an actual building adopted for storage of hazardous materials and a real heat detector system were considered. The temperature field resulting from two different types of t2-growth fire, i.e., one ultra-fast and one with slow evolution, were analyzed. The corresponding alarm times were evaluated and compared with ASD characteristics timings, recognized as a benchmark for its high sensitivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As widely acknowledged, learning from accidents represents one of the main source of knowledge for future loss prevention. An effective investigation may help enhancing the process of continuous improvement of the safety management system. Recently,, during a pipeline batching operation between two storage facilities of the same corporation, a LOC from the flange caused a spary release of atomised diesel, impacting on the adjacent national road. Two complementary approaches for accident investigation are here considered, i.e., customized root cause analysis workflow and Causal Analysis using System Theory approach. The best approach lies in the systemic nature of the selected methods applied to the whole socio-technical hierarchy of the concerned process trying to improve on one hand existing hazard analysis and on the other hand accident analysis. The paper outlines the fact-finding process from the technical viewpoint, as well as preconditions and latent failures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to present Ammonia pressure station from the major accident prevention point of view. This object, located in the SEVESO establishment, present a significant source of risk which can cause serious consequences to human health and the environment in case of major accident. Ammonia, classified as a named dangerous substance, is stored in 500 kilograms pressure vessel, which is inside of the pressure station placed. The highest risk for surroundings presents transport of ammonia pressure vessel from the storage to the pressure station and transport to the storage naturally. For purposes of completion of approved SEVESO documentation, new risk assessment had to be processed. This paper focuses in particular on the possible negative impact on the environment in case of extraordinary release of ammonia from the pressure vessel. For calculation of consequence categories of the impact on the environment was selected methodology "Hazard & Vulnerability Index". The H&V index methodology is a Czech, official and frequently used methodology recommended especially for the environmental risk analysis in the SEVESO establishments. The benefit of this methodology is in its options to evaluate the impact to different parts of the environment, i.e. surface waters, underground waters, soil medium and biota considering diverse vulnerability of these components. Risk analysis via the H&V index methodology follows up on the determination of accident scenarios, a stage describing different transfer routes of ammonia release to the environment occurred in the establishment. The pressure vessel is to a steel pallet attached so that it can transported in the establishment by a forklift or truck. Four different places in the establishment was determined as the worst in terms of the environmental endanger (i.e. direct and indirect endanger of the environment, transport via sewer system etc.). Consequence categories were for closed surface water and biotic environmental compartments calculated. In conclusion, risk acceptability of determined scenarios is estimated in acceptable level. Results are presented via risk matrix recommended by H&V Index methodology. Visualization of scenarios is created by GIS. Proposed preventive measures including the way of liquidation of ammonia accidental release close this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chemical process industries are threatened with accidental and intentional adverse events because of the storage and operation of large quantities of hazardous substances. Safety and security barriers play important roles in protecting the chemical plants from safety and security-related undesired events and mitigating the potentially catastrophic consequences. Aiming to identify major accident scenarios in terms of both safety and security and determine the corresponding safety and security barriers, a novel approach based on MIMAH (methodology for identifying major accident hazards) and historical data analysis is proposed. In this approach, the MIMAH is extended to identify accident scenarios related to safety, physical security, and cyber security by using a combination of bow-tie analysis and attack tree analysis. Then, data analysis is conducted to supplement the identified major accident scenarios before the critical safety and security barriers can be identified and illustrated based on an integrated bow-tie and attack tree model. This study helps to identify major hazards considering both safety and security perspectives and supports the integrated assessment and management of safety and security barriers in the chemical process industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The possibility of inducing major accident scenarios by physical intentional attacks (e.g. terrorist attacks) to chemical and process plants processing and storing hazardous substances, has been increasingly recognized in the last decades. The identification of the credible security scenarios (chain from attack scenarios to major accident scenarios) is required by Security Vulnerability/Risk Assessment (SVA/SRA) methodologies, but an evident lack of supporting tools is present in the literature. The present study proposes a Bow-Tie approach for the identification of reference security scenarios to support hazard identification phase in SVA/SRA. The potential use of the results is demonstrated on a test case (industrial atmospheric tank storing a flammable liquid). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wildfires approaching the Wildland-Industrial Interfaces can be a serious threat for industrial items located at the plant boundary. These items are typically storage tanks involving large amounts of hazardous substances. Ensuring their integrity is of paramount importance to prevent the wildfire spread inside the industrial plant, avoiding the occurrence of major accidents such as fires, explosions and toxic releases. A methodology for the evaluation of safety distances between tanks and vegetation for the protection from wildfire hazard was developed and applied to a case study. The outcomes provide useful information for an effective emergency response planning in the case of wildfire. Moreover, the results obtained rise concern about the appropriateness of clearance areas between the vegetation and industrial areas currently adopted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aiming at the problem of non-linear optimization in TDOA location estimation of hazardous chemicals palletized goods, a TDOA location algorithm based on improved particle swarm optimization was proposed. Based on the conventional PSO algorithm, the algorithm dynamically adjusts the inertia weight and acceleration weight, which effectively solves the problem that the particle swarm optimization algorithm is easy to fall into the local optimum, and the algorithm quickly converges to the global optimal solution. Experiments show that the algorithm has stable performance and high positioning accuracy. Laser scanning confocal microscopy (LSCM) is an advanced technology in molecular and cellular biology. Based on fluorescence microscopy imaging, a laser scanning device is installed to collect fluorescence labeled images of tissues and cells combined with data image processing technology. The changes of calcium plasma level were observed at subcellular level, and the relationship between cell physiological activities and changes of cell morphology and movement was observed by electrophysiological techniques. Virtual microscopy is an organic combination of modern virtual instrument technology and traditional optical microscopy. On the basis of effective magnification and observation of optical microscopy, it collects high resolution digital imaging by programmable scanning mode, completes image mosaic, fabricates virtual slices, carries computer and Internet to construct virtual environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of Hazardous Materials on different kind of human aspects motivate scholars to increase their attention for decreasing negative impacts of them to human life. In this concern, this paper addresses a decision structure to transfer the hazardous materials to the safe location in the industries logistic system. To reach this goal, we present a new mathematical modelling problem in which location routing problem of hazardous material is addressed. To cope imprecise risk in a practical way, we define it to three kinds in the fuzzy environment including accident risk, population risk, and the bio-environmental risk. To obtain optimal results, three well-known multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) including Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-II), Strength Pareto Evolutionary Algorithm II (SPEA-II) and Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithm Based on Decomposition (MOEA/D) are presented for solving ten test problems. In this case, this novelty of the model is discussed, firstly, and then proposed algorithms are compared with respect to obtained results. The results of this paper show that Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-II) has superior performance in terms of metrics, and Strength Pareto Evolutionary Algorithm II (SPEA-II) beats other multi-objective evolutionary algorithms in terms of obtained number of individuals in final Pareto solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organic peroxides are materials that belong to one of the 13 classes of dangerous goods, i.e., class 5.2. They are characterized by specific hazards and, due to that fact, require strictly determined conditions of storage and transport. Regulations that govern the issue of the road transport of dangerous goods and the storage of organic peroxides are separately contained in various legal acts. Storage conditions of organic peroxides are determined in the legal regulations in the form of general guidelines, which need to be described in detail, based on expert knowledge from the entities engaged in this process. This article attempts to provide details regarding the conditions of the road transport and storage of C-type organic peroxides using the example of benzoyl peroxide (concentration 75%). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the proper way for chemistry students and teachers to dispose of chemical waste in chemistry and science classrooms to prevent accidents. Topics include the procedures and school rules to use proper chemical waste receptacles, the use of a hazardous materials (HazMat) team to dispose of hazardous chemicals, as well as other safety procedures to dispose of or store chemical waste.