Inherent Safety Index For Transportation Of Chemicals

Abstract

Inherent Safety can be understood as the absence or reduction of hazards (which implies lower risk) rather than low risk reached by add-on protective barriers. While the methodologies for risk analysis are well developed and understood, the evaluation of inherent safety is still not based on systematic procedures and depends on the assessment of subjective principles. The behavior of a chemical substance is one of the most important sources of hazard in a chemical process due to its intrinsic chemical and thermodynamic properties. When these substances are raw materials or sub-products (waste) they must be transported to/from the chemical facility, and this activity extends the chemical hazards from the processing plant to the community. Therefore, to obtain a general evaluation of the inherent safety level of a chemical plant, it is necessary to consider the hazards due to transportation of chemicals and treat these as an additional ìpropertyî of the substance. This paper presents an overview of a novel inherent safety index based on fuzzy logic, which is useful to evaluate the inherent safety level of a plant. An example evaluates the transportation step of chemical substances, shows how the index works, and describes how it can be applied to different stages of the life cycles of a chemical facility. In this paper a very brief and basic introduction to fuzzy logic mathematics is provided. More information and related internet links can be obtained from the website mkopsc.tamu.edu and then from the links research ! inherent safety ! fuzzy logic.