Closure, Additional Information and Acknowledgements

This short course was designed to aid the practicing engineer who has responsibilities for risk assessment, management and reduction in chemical plants and petroleum refineries.

The topics for risk assessment have been presented in sufficient detail to judge their applicability for a current need and have supplied the background to apply these methods to chemical plants.

A risk assessment program brings together analytical tools to detect, prevent and mitigate risks associated with processing hazardous materials. These include HAZOP analysis, Event Tree Analysis, Explosion and Fire Analysis, Plume Dispersion Analysis and Health Effect Assessment.

Additional topics of importance to risk assessment are:

• Human reliability
• Emergency preparedness
• Risk financing
• Federal and state regulatory requirements
• Training for industrial facilities

Regrettably time and space prevented describing these valuable topics.

Information Sources

Most of the information presented in this short course was obtained from the following two sources. These books are recommended for further details on the topics.

Risk Assessment and Risk Management for the Chemical Process Industry, H. R. Greenberg and J. J. Cramer, Editors, John Wiley and Sons, New York, NY (1991). The authors and contributors are all senior staff members of Stone and Webster Engineering Corporation.

Process Synthesis and Design, A Self-Instructional Problem Workbook, D. Kauffman, ETS International, Inc. Roanoke, VA (1992). Professor Kauffman is on the chemical engineering faculty at the University of New Mexico Also, additional sources of information including books and web sites are given.

Additional Sources of Information
Books:

J. F. Louvar and D. B. Louvar, Health and Environmental Risk Analysis: Fundamentals with Applications, Prentice-Hall (1998)

Guidelines for Chemical Process Quantitative Risk Analysis, Center for Chemical Process Safety, AIChE, (1989), Second Edition (2000)

I. S. Sutton, Process Reliability and Risk Management, Van Nostrand Reinhold, (1992)

Web Sites:

www.aiche.org/ccps
www.process-safety.tamu.edu
www.primatech.com
www.epa.gov/opptintr/newchems
www.epa.gov/nerlesd1
https://www.epa.gov/risk

The books listed here are recommended for additional information. The web sites include the AIChE’s Center for Chemical Process Safety, a Center at Texas A&M University and three EPA web sites. An Internet search will generate numerous other sites.

Acknowledgements

The major portion of this short course was organized and assembled by Melanie B. Mitchum who is now a chemical engineer with ExxonMobil. The work was directed by Professor Ralph W. Pike of the Department of Chemical Engineering at Louisiana State University and is responsibile for any omissions and errors, but this statement does not invalidate the disclaimer given previously. Also, the assistance of Arlys Etienne, Sreeram Vuppala and Janardhan Punuru is gratefully acknowledged. Support was provided by EPA and the LSU Department of Chemical Engineering.