Study on risk assessment of chemical process based on an advanced layers of protection analysis method

• Published in: The Korean journal of chemical engineering Vol. 33; no. 8; pp. 2291 - 2297
• Main Authors: Tong, ShuJiao, Wu, ZongZhi, Wang, RuJun, Duo, YingQuan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.08.2016; 한국화학공학회
• Subjects: Biotechnology; Catalysis; Chemistry; Chemistry and Materials Science; Industrial Chemistry/Chemical Engineering; Materials Science; Process Safety; Process Systems Engineering; 화학공학; Layers of Protection Analysis; Emergency; Risk Assessment; Fuzzy Set; Chemical Process
• ISSN: 0256-1115; 1975-7220
• DOI: 10.1007/s11814-016-0141-3

This paper focuses on an advanced layers of protection analysis (LOPA) method to assess the risk of a chemical process. Based on the chemical accident statistics between 2001 and 2014 in China, an acceptable risk function was built for chemical processes to confirm the acceptable risk value for an accident scenario. The assessment index for an emergency system was developed to assess the protective function of emergency protection based on analytic hierarchy process (AHP), and the probability of failure on demand (PFD) of emergency protection was obtained by fuzzy comprehensive assessment method and fuzzy set theory. The proposed method was applied to a methanol distillation installation. The result showed that the protections, including emergency protection, were sufficient because the probability of mitigation protection (1×10 −8 ) was less than the acceptable risk value (3.04×10 −7 ). The advanced LOPA method was proven to be able to improve the integrity and accuracy of traditional LOPA.