MEng Chemical Engineering

• Why do we need to design for safety? (L1–L2)
• Designing for Safety / Analysing Designs for Safety (L3-L4, L10)
• Hazards – What are problems that design must control? (L6-L9)
• Checking for major hazards (L7)
• How safe is safe enough? Ethics and Probabilities (L11)
• Process Hazard Analysis Methods (L5, L12-L15)
• Running a plant safely (L16–L17)

Students will be able to:

1 Identify the hazards present in a process – including flammability, explosion, toxicity and human factors.

2 Describe the factors that aggravate and mitigate hazards and calculate hazards such as flammability limits, explosive properties.

3 Use the barrier model to design a layered approach to reducing or mitigating a hazard.

4 Design and justify a control strategy to operate a process safely, presenting it on a P&ID, and including BPCS, SIS and safety devices such as pressure relief valves and bursting discs.

5 Apply the main process hazard analysis tools (HAZID, HAZOP LOPA, Fault Tree, Hazardous Area Classification) to simple situations, using the HSE TOR model to identify if the hazards have been sufficiently controlled.

6 Develop and apply safety management tools (Permit to Work systems, Management of Change) to control the hazards in simple situations.

Lectures and examples of previous exam questions and styles of answers
HAZOP training courses: interactive outline and full text-based course
HAZOP of a large rig in the James Chadwick Building, with LOPA of critical sections, supported by workshop sessions