Applied Safety for Engineers

Systems and Products

B.S. Dhillon

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781032080987
• eBook ISBN: 9781000520033
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Industrial Engineering
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Global competition and other factors are forcing manufacturers to produce highly safe engineering systems and products. This book meets the needs for product designers, systems engineers, and safety engineers that work together and need a single resource which considers all three areas when designing new products and systems that they can refer to.

Applied Safety for Engineers: Systems and Products serves as a comprehensive resource offering a wide range of safety topics when involved with product design, engineering system analysis, and engineering maintenance. Examples along with their solutions are placed at the end of each chapter to test reader comprehension. The book facilitates the importance for product designers, safety, and systems engineering professionals to work closely during the product design phase so they can understand each other's discipline. Written in a manner that readers do not need any previous knowledge on the subject, the book offers many sources for further reading at the end of each chapter.

This book will be useful to product designers, system engineers, safety specialists, graduate and senior undergraduate students, researchers and manufacturers, industrial engineers, safety engineers, and engineers-at-large.

1 Introduction

DOI: 10.1201/9781003212928-1

1.1 Safety History

The history of safety may be traced back to 2000 BC when the ancient Babylonian ruler Hammurabi developed a code known as the Code of Hammurabi. This code contained clauses, directly or indirectly, concerning areas such as injuries, allowable fees for physicians, and monetary damages assessed against those who caused injury to others [1, 2]. In the 4th century BC, Hippocrates, a Greek doctor, highlighted lead poisoning, and a Roman called Pliny the Elder (AD 23–79) pointed to fumes from lead as well as the dust from mercury ore grinding and recommended the wearing of protective masks by involved workers [3, 4].

In modern times, in 1868, a patent was awarded for the first barrier safeguard and in 1877, the Massachusetts legislature passed a law requiring appropriate safeguards on hazardous machinery [1]. In 1893, the United States Congress passed the Railway Safety Act and in 1913, the National Council of Industrial Safety was formed and changed its name to the National Safety Council in 1915 [1, 5]. In 1969, the United States Department of Defense released MIL-STD-882 titled “System Safety Program for Systems and Associated Subsystems and Equipment: Requirements for” and in 1970, the United States Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act.

Additional information on the safety history is available in Ref. [6].

1.2 Need for Safety and Engineering Safety Goals

Safety has become a very important issue because each year a large number of people die and get seriously injured due to workplace-related and other accidents. For example, in the United States alone for the year 1996, as per the National Safety Council, there were 93,400 fatalities and a large number of disabling injuries due to accidents with a total loss of US$121 billion [7]. In addition, factors such as lawsuits, governmental regulations, and public pressures also play a key role in demanding the need for better safety.

There are many engineering safety goals and some of these are as follows:

• Eliminate or control hazards.
• Reduce accidents.
• Maximize public confidence in regard to safety.
• Develop new methods and techniques for improving safety.
• Maximize returns on safety-related efforts.

1.3 Safety Application Areas

Ever since the inception of the safety field, the safety discipline has branched into many application areas such as follows:

• Robot safety: This is an emerging new area of the application of basic safety principles to robot-related problems over the years, many publications on the subject have appeared, including two textbooks [8, 9].
• Medical systems safety: This is also an emerging new area of the application of basic safety principles to medical system-associated problems. Over the years, many publications on the topic have appeared, including two textbooks which present some material on the topic [10, 11].
• Airline and ship safety: This is also an emerging new area of the application of basic safety principles to airline- and ship-related problems. Over the years, many publications on the topic have appeared, including one textbook which presents some material on the topic [12].
• Rail safety: This is also an emerging new area of the application of basic safety principles to rail safety-related problems. Over the years many publications on the topic have appeared, including one textbook which presents some material on the topic [12].
• Mining equipment safety: This is also an emerging new area of the application of basic safety principles to mining equipment-related problems. Over the years, many publications on the topic have appeared, including two textbooks which present some material on the topic [13, 14].
• Safety in offshore oil and gas industry: This is also an emerging new area of the application of basic safety principles in offshore oil and gas industry-related problems. Over the years, many publications on the topic have appeared, including one textbook which presents some material on the topic [15].
• Software safety: This is a very important emerging area of safety as the use of computers and other electronic devices is increasing at an alarming rate. Over the years, many publications on the topic have appeared, including two textbooks which present some material on the topic [6, 16].
• Truck and Bus safety: This is also an emerging new area of the application of basic safety principles to truck and bus safety-associated problems. Over the years many publications on the topic have appeared, including one textbook which presents some material on the topic [12].
• Safety in nuclear power plants: This is also an emerging area of the application of basic safety principles in nuclear power plant-related problems. Over the years many publications on the topic have appeared, including one textbook which presents some material on the topic [17].

1.4 Safety Facts and Figures

Some of the facts and figures directly or indirectly concerned with the subject of safety are as follows:

• In 1995, work-associated accidents cost the United States economy around US$75 billion [18].
• In 2000, there were a to...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Author
• Chapter 1 Introduction
• Chapter 2 Basic Mathematical Concepts
• Chapter 3 Safety Basics
• Chapter 4 Safety Analysis Methods
• Chapter 5 Robot Safety
• Chapter 6 Safety in Nuclear Power Plants
• Chapter 7 Medical Systems Safety
• Chapter 8 Airline and Ship Safety
• Chapter 9 Rail Safety
• Chapter 10 Truck and Bus Safety
• Chapter 11 Mining Equipment Safety
• Chapter 12 Programmable Electronic Mining System Safety
• Chapter 13 Safety in Offshore Oil and Gas Industry
• Chapter 14 Software Safety
• Chapter 15 Safety in Engineering Maintenance
• Index