Hazard and operability study

The HAZOP-study (including HAZOP ) is a practice of safety engineering and is used to study the safety of technical installations. HAZOP stands for: forecast, find the source, estimating the impact of countermeasures.

A team of experts from various disciplines under the guidance of a moderator examined in meetings all parts of a plant by systematic analysis.

With HAZOP put the BG Chemie developed by ICI in the UK HAZOP method (of English Hazard and Operability ) for Germany to; ultimately, the procedures are the same. The origins of HAZOP in the chemical industry in the early seventies and was first applied on a software in the early nineties.

Requirements

Although there seem relatively straightforward in principle, the HAZOP-study requires the use of a team of experienced professionals from the field of plant design, plant operation, monitoring, maintenance and repair, etc. In applying are an appropriate experience, a corresponding technical knowledge, understanding and skills in the procedure for HAZOP-study is required.

With some pre-made tables, a variety of known process technology variations may be determined and evaluated. It is the task to examine the parties, whether completely the well-known parameter to map all processes in a system. It is required farsightedness to recognize non-standard or rare scenarios that describe their extreme states and to determine the consequences in its entirety.

Method

First a technical delimited system is selected for the analysis. The system is in the process industry, a piece of equipment or an entire plant. Then, the -intended target behavior of the system is defined in the operation.

The central method of HAZOP ( Hazop ) is the study of what impact it has when the system under consideration does not behave as it was intended. In particular, this involves potential risks occurring or operating restrictions.

The investigation carried out by a team of experts. An experienced moderator leads the analysis team systematically through the analysis process by using appropriate mottos. The watchwords are linked during the discussion with specific process parameters in order to identify possible deviations from the planned operation. The mottos focus the team on certain aspects that should be discussed. The sum of all mottos means that the system behavior is extensively illuminated.

The focus of the motto method lies in locating potential hazards and risks associated with deviations from the desired behavior. HAZOP has not the goal to immediately find all possible causes and remedies for the deviations and risks found. Typically, this additional analysis using methods such as FMEA required. But: the causes and possible remedies that are found during the HAZOP meeting are, of course logged.

Routewords

The task of the mottos is to ensure that the discussion topic is fully covered. The mottos that have been proposed in HAZOP ( HAZOP ), must therefore be at particular tasks, possibly supplemented or adjusted.