Do Your Part to Bolster Safety Keep up-to-date on relevant issues and incidents

摘要

OUR INDUSTRY too often has learned lessons about process safety the hard way-by evaluating what went wrong after a disaster.Such analysis can provide insights that can improve the safety of many chemical plants.For instance,a final report issued in mid-February by the U.S.Chemical Safety Board(CSB)on an incident in June 2016 at the Enterprise Products Pascagoula Gas Plant in Pasca-goula,Miss.,pinpoints the probable cause as thermal fatigue of a brazed aluminum heat exchanger(BAHX)widely used in similar plants.(See:”CSB Cites Thermal Fatigue In 2016 Pascagoula Gas Plant Explosion,”http://bit.ly/2XwLrqv.)The CSB notes that incident stemmed from a major loss of containment in a BAHX.This resulted in release of methane,ethane,propane and several other hydrocarbons.Their subsequent ignition led to a series of fires and explosions that idled the site for almost six months.