This course covers the scientific principles underlying process safety and the practices prevailing in the process industry
Safety and Loss Prevention; safety, hazard and risk; accident and loss statistics; acceptable risk; nature of accident process; inherent safety; study of major accidents. Toxicology and Industrial Hygiene: Effect of toxicants on biological systems; models for dose and response curves; relative toxicity and threshold limits; Govt. Regulations for industrial safety – Indian and international scenario; MSDS; occupational health hazards and their control. Fires and Explosions: Fire Triangle; definitions; flammability characteristics of liquid and vapour; limiting oxygen concentration; flammability diagram; ignition energy; auto ignition and auto oxidation; adiabatic compression; ignition sources; sprays and mists; explosions; fire protection systems. Designs to prevent fires and explosions: Inerting; static electricity; controlling static electricity; explosion proof equipment and instruments; ventilation; sprinkler systems. Source Models: Flow of liquid from a hole in a tank and pipe; flow of liquid through pipes; flow of vapours through holes; flow of gases through pipes (adiabatic/isothermal); flashing liquids; liquid pool evaporation or boiling; guidelines for selecting process incidents. Accident Investigation: Incident causation theories; investigation methodologies; impact of human factors; building and leading accident investigation team; gathering and analyzing evidence; determining root cause; developing effective recommendations. Toxic Release and Dispersion models: Parameters affecting dispersion; neutrally buoyant dispersion models; dense gas dispersion; toxic effect criteria; effect of release momentum and buoyancy; release mitigation. Accident Case Histories: Lessons learnt through application of fundamentals of chemical process safety in following categories of accidents:System design; chemical reactivity; static electricity; procedures. Process Safety Management (PSM); reliability management. Risk Assessment: Probability theory; event trees; fault trees; LOPA; QRA; practical application of QRA.
This is the capstone chemical process design course. It is a project-based course where students design a chemical process to solve an open-ended problem. The course integrates knowledge from the entire chemical engineering curriculum and provides students with real-world experience.
Specifically they would: • Conduct surveys for information on available technologies, markets, prices, safety/environment impacts • Develop a process flowsheet based on chemical engineering principles and heuristics • Perform preliminary & detailed economic analysis of the process • Analyse material and energy balances for a complete integrated process using flowsheeting software such as Aspen Plus • Develop a complete process flow diagram (PFD) for a process • Carry out Chemical Engineering design of major items of equipment such as reactors, distillation columns, heat exchangers, pumps, compressors, etc • Carry out Mechanical design of one or more equipment with reference to appropriate codes and design standards • Conduct safety, health, and sustainability analysis of an integrated process