Enhancement of inherent safety and accident prevention in chemical industry by reviewing past accidents

Abstract

Inherent safety initiatives in the chemical process industry are known since 30 years ago. However the uptakes of this concept are slow even though major accidents occur every year. The main objective of this research is to prevent accidents through inherently safer design point of view by reviewing past accidents. Analysis of the past accidents offers significant data to the understanding and prevention of industrial accidents. Lessons and main areas of concern to improve safety in chemical process industry are discussed especially on inherently safer design points of view. It is possible to use inherent safety keywords such as minimization, substitution, moderation, simplification, limitation of effect and error tolerance; to prevent accidents and some of which could have been avoided if ISD had been practiced.