If one studies incident reports from the worldwide chemical processing industries (and filters out the buzzwords applicable to his/her particular branch),it becomes apparent that there are several distinct problematic patterns.Some types of incidents occur over and over.A large portion of these incidents occur when operating and maintenance personnel confront process excursions that they do not recognize or understand.Typically,they are comprehensively trained in the overt,commercial processes (shift conversion,reforming,dehydration,etc.).However,many of the incidents are initiated by obscure aspects of chemistry and physics (such as,phase behavior,electrostatic charging,notch brittleness,etc.).These concepts are rarely included in standard operating procedures.These poorly understood "sub-processes " merit the title of "serial killers in the process plant".
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