HAZard and OPerability analysis (HAZOP) on a new plant facility
Brief
Perform HAZOP risk analyses during both the design and the operation of plants or parts of plants. In particular, the requested design phase HAZOP analysis was conducted to verify the compliance of the project itself with the safety requirements established in legislation as well as corporate and international standards. The goal of the analysis was to identify major accidental events capable of compromising plant safety.
Project challenge
The risk analysis must take into account the complexity of the process and the control systems envisaged, as well as the various plant facility configurations and operating phases (e.g. commissioning, ordinary operation, reduced operation, shutdown, safety).
Solution
Identification of multidisciplinary team members for the HAZOP activity (leader, secretary, process engineering technical experts, safety, maintenance), followed by planning and organisation of the HAZOP sessions.
Execution phases
STEP 1 – HAZOP
HAZOP activity aimed at analysing all the lines and vessels of a process, reported on the P&IDs or flow diagrams by using key words (e.g.: more, less, no, different from) which are systematically applied to each relevant process variable (e.g.: temperature, pressure, flow rate, composition) with the aim of sequentially identifying:
- possible causes of reasonably conceivable process deviations;
- the possible consequences of such deviations;
- the presence of measures deemed sufficient in the opinion of the Working Group for the detection and correction of the hypothesised deviation.
STEP 2 – Conclusions
The aim of the analysis was therefore to identify any actions (recommendations) deemed useful to increase the security and operability of the systems examined.
The results of the HAZOP are recorded on special worksheets on which the appropriate actions to be taken were also recorded.
Achieved results
The major events, i.e. the critical points of the process studied, were identified and, based on this, corrective measures were identified and risk analysis and simulation of the consequences were carried out.