FIRES AND EXPLOSIONS-MANAGING PROCESS SAFETY

This book is intended as an introduction to industrial disasters and how process safety management becomes a leading concern. The book is categorized into six chapters. A brief description of each of the chapters is as follows:

Chapter 1 is a story-telling. This chapter highlights the case histories of industrial major accidents and sets the scene for discussions presented by various sources. In particular, this chapter is arranged and structured in a very simple presentation that encompasses the subtopics of introduction, crrors and mistakes, event consequences, and lesson learnt. It also highlights the importance of establishing precautionary and mitigating measures.

Chapter 2 discusses the need for a systematic management system to deal with process complexity. The authors of this chapter contend that by implementing process safety management (widely known as PSM), a business organization ensures the highest level of protection against all sorts of “process’s” threats.

Chapter 3 urges the importance of safety culture in the process industries It gives an insight on how safety attitudes, values and behaviours shape safety in the organisational settings. A factor model of safety culture is discussed to give an easy understanding of what a safety culture is made of. Lastly, steps towards developing a generative safety culture is discussed as an integrated model.

Chapter 4 discusses the generic concept of fire and explosion propagation. The overall aim of the chapter is to expose the reader to explosion development, where it can best be described by flame propagation. Flame evolution starts with the development of ignition and propagates in laminar mode before being transitioned to the turbulent flame.

Chapter 5 highlights the principle of dust explosion. In this chapter, the main distinctions between fire and dust explosions are discussed. The authors also help the reader to understand more about the fundamental of the fire triangle and dust explosion pentagon Chapter 6 is the last chapter in this book. The authors end up the discussion with an overview of the legislative framework pertaining to technological disasters management. In this chapter, a brief explanation about Malaysia’s Control of Industrial Major Accident Hazards (CIMAH) Regulation and National Security Council Directive 20 have been highlighted. The UK’s CIMAH, SEVESO Directives, Hyogo Framework, and Sendai Framework are also discussed in brief.