Process Operations Safety

The What, Why, and How Behind Safe Petrochemical Plant Operations

M. Darryl Yoes

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9781394271931
• eBook ISBN: 9781394271955
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Industrial Health & Safety
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Provides crucial lessons in process safety operations, drawing from 100 global case studies

Written from an operator's perspective, Process Operations Safety provides valuable information and education on the fundamentals of process operations safety by providing background on process safety and key leading operational management and equipment failures that have led to catastrophic process safety incidents, including loss of life. Written by an expert with more than five decades of industry experience, this book enables readers to learn how simple jobs that they perform every day can lead to catastrophic safety incidents without proper caution, protocol, and attention.

A self-learning quiz is provided near each chapter's end, with answers to all questions provided in the Appendix. A listing of additional resources or reference material, many with internet links, is also included at the end of each chapter.

Readers will find:

• Principles of process safety, properties of hydrocarbons, vapor cloud explosions (VCE), and boiling liquid expanding vapor explosions (BLEVE)
• Most frequent causes of significant process safety events in refining and petrochemical industries
• Causal factors in over 100 global case studies of operations and incidents, divided into thirty-eight subchapters with several examples for each, explaining what happened and what could have happened
• Key lessons learned, written in simple terms using descriptions without jargon or complicated formulas

Process Operations Safety is an essential learning resource for petroleum refining and petrochemical plant operators, line supervisors, and critical support staff with field responsibility, such as process and mechanical engineers, along with advanced students at community and four-year colleges and technical/trade schools taking a process operations course.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• About the Author
• Foreword
• Chapter 1 The Guiding Principles of Process Safety Management
• Chapter 2 Process Safety Background and Federal Regulations
• Chapter 3 Properties of Hydrocarbons (Fire and Explosion Hazards)
• Chapter 4 Vapor Cloud Explosions (VCEs)
• Chapter 5 Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion (BLEVE)
• Chapter 6 An Introduction to Process Safety Management Systems
• Chapter 7 Importance of Operating Procedures
• Chapter 8 Significant Causes of Process Safety Incidents “What Has Happened, What Can Happen, and Key Lessons Learned”
• Chapter 8.1 Returning Equipment to Service
• Chapter 8.2 Safe Permit‐to‐Work – Breaking Containment and Controlling Work
• Chapter 8.3 Managing Change
• Chapter 8.4 Ensuring Availability of SSHE Critical Devices (Controlling the Unauthorized and Extended Disarmament of Critical Devices)
• Chapter 8.5 Managing Critical Alarms
• Chapter 8.6 Managing Safe Operating Limits or Operating Envelopes
• Chapter 8.7 Maintaining Safe Product Rundown Control
• Chapter 8.8 Storage Tank Safety
• Chapter 8.9 Injection and Mixing Point Failures
• Chapter 8.10 Hazards of Piping “Dead Legs”
• Chapter 8.11 Brittle Fracture
• Chapter 8.12 Hazards of Furnaces and Heaters
• Chapter 8.13 Corrosion Under Insulation and Under Fireproofing
• Chapter 8.14 Hazards of Thermal Expansion
• Chapter 8.15 Hydrostatic Testing vs. Pneumatic Testing
• Chapter 8.16 Cold‐wall Vessel and Piping Failures
• Chapter 8.17 Metallurgy Matters: Positive Materials Identification (PMI)
• Chapter 8.18 Hazards of Nitrogen and Inert Entry
• Chapter 8.19 Hazards of Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S)
• Chapter 8.20 Hazards of Product Sampling and Drawing Water from Process Equipment
• Chapter 8.21 Pyrophoric Ignition Hazards in Refining and Chemical Plants
• Chapter 8.22 Hazards of Static Electricity
• Chapter 8.23 Hazards of Hydrofluoric Acid
• Chapter 8.24 Safe Use of Utilities; Connecting Utilities to Process Equipment
• Chapter 8.25 The Hazards of Steam and Hot Condensate
• Chapter 8.26 Electrical Hazardous Area Classification System
• Chapter 8.27 Hazards of Combustible Dust
• Chapter 8.28 Hazards of Undetected or Uncontrolled Exothermic Reactions
• Chapter 8.29 Responding to Minor Leaks and Releases
• Chapter 8.30 Electrical Safety Hazards for Operations Personnel
• Chapter 8.31 Hazards of Chemical Incompatibility or Reactivity
• Chapter 8.32 Hazards of Unintended Process Flow (The Mixing of Hydrocarbons and Air) in Fluid Catalytic Cracking Units (FCCU)
• Chapter 8.33 Hazards of “Normalized Deviation”
• Chapter 8.34 Criticality of Car Seal Valve Management Plan
• Chapter 8.35 Small Piping Guidelines for Operations Safety
• Chapter 8.36 Overpressure Protection (All About Relief Valves and Rupture Disks)
• Chapter 8.37 Special Hazards of Rotating Equipment
• Chapter 8.38 Two Insidious Hazards Associated with Petrochemical Plants (Popcorn Polymer and Ethylene Decomposition)
• Chapter 9 Importance of Operations Emergency Response Drills and Exercises
• Chapter 10 Ensuring Comprehensive Shift Turnover
• Chapter 11 The Importance of Leading and Lagging Indicators for Process Safety
• Chapter 12 Process Safety Hazard Recognition and the Importance of Field Presence and the Value of Periodic Field Walk‐arounds
• Chapter 13 Process Safety Leadership
• Chapter 14 Process Task Management System
• Chapter 15 Process Operator Rounds – Timely, Systematic, and Comprehensive
• Chapter 16 The Importance of Behavior‐based Safety and Human Factors to Process Safety
• Chapter 17 Use of Inherently Safer Design and Technologies
• Chapter 18 Putting It All Together and Making a Difference
• Appendix A End of Chapter Quiz with Answers
• Appendix B Worldwide Process Safety Incidents and Numbers of Lives Lost
• Appendix C Auto‐Refrigeration, When Bad Things Happen to Good Pressure Vessels
• Appendix D OSHA Hazards of Combustible Dust Poster
• Appendix E HF Water Mitigation – Techniques and Design Considerations
• Appendix F Authorization for Disablement (Example Only) Safety, Security, Health, and/or Environmental Critical Devices
• Appendix G Petroleum Refining and Petrochemical Plant Process Operations Safety
• Appendix Ha The Hazards of Nitrogen Asphyxiation
• Appendix Hb Safety Bulletin – Hazards of Nitrogen Asphyxiation
• Appendix I Technical Guidance – Car Seals
• Appendix J Example Blind List and Simplified Blind Sketch
• Appendix K Chemical Segregation and Storage Table
• Appendix L Process Safety Field Walkabouts (Example)
• Appendix M Internal Combustion Engines as Ignition Sources
• Appendix N The History of Diesel Engine Runaway Accidents and Related Regulations
• Appendix O Potential Startup Issues – M. Darry Yoes's “Worry List”
• Index
• EULA