Use of hazard analysis techniques in preventing and reducing process industrial accidents

Abstract

Increasing experiences of process industrial accidents in the modern industries together with the social and legal pressures have raised the necessity of developing more effective safety evaluation and accident scenario analysis techniques. With the development of chemical process industry and 'industrial zones' in Sri Lanka, the hazard posed by accidents can be expected to increase, if appropriate prevention measures are not been established. Increasing experiences of process industrial accidents in the modem industries In the process of developing more effective hazard evaluation methods such as advanced automated hazard analysis tools with minimum human judgment, application and utilization of currently available hazard analysis techniques should be studied as a preliminary step. In this paper, the above application and use of two hazard analysis techniques in preventing and reducing hazardous events in a unit operation commonly found in the Sri Lankan small and medium scale process industries is discussed. Initially commonly found unit operations are identified and one of them, that is the mixing operation is analysed for potential incidents that can happen during its operation and the hazards associated with them. Accident scenario analysis techniques, namely fault tree analysis and event tree analysis are then used in analysing potential two deviations and the associated hazards in the above unit operation. This analysis is then used in determining the measures to prevent and reduce dangerous events from occurring.