Mechanical integrity of process installations
Barrier alarm management based on bowties
Peter Schmitz (OCI-Nitrogen, TU Delft - Technology, Policy and Management)
Paul Swuste (TU Delft - Technology, Policy and Management)
Genserik Reniers (TU Delft - Technology, Policy and Management)
Karolien van Nunen (Universiteit Antwerpen, TU Delft - Technology, Policy and Management)
More Info
expand_more
Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.
Abstract
A Safety Research project was carried out in an ammonia plant of OCI Nitrogen, located at the Chemelot site in Geleen, The Netherlands. This research focused on the development of a method to monitor accident processes in the chemical industry mainly caused by mechanical integrity of static equipment like vessels, tanks and heat exchangers. A significant part of the mechanical integrity failure scenarios originates from material degradation and corrosion mechanisms which may develop over a relatively long-time period, possibly taking months, years or even longer. Mechanical failure scenarios from two process units have been worked out and visualized using a bowtie. The research project shows that the monitoring of early warnings can provide information about the current development of mechanical failure scenarios. In addition, early warnings can be used to initiate inspections if there is a likelihood that the mechanical failure scenario has been activated. Considering the shift from breakdown maintenance to preventive and predictive maintenance and risk-based inspection (RBI), inspections based on early warnings could also be a new step in the field of maintenance efficiency.
help_outline