(209b) Teaching Process Safety Systems: Some Practical Applications

Engineering education must provide students a practical understanding of ‘conservation of life’ and its equivalence in importance with other fundamental engineering laws of conservation. This requires that students develop a real world view of effective process safety programs, which necessarily include safety culture and leadership, process safety systems, and operational discipline. In particular, process safety systems and methodologies must be introduced and used to identify and assess process hazards and to evaluate and manage the associated process risks through appropriate design, multiple layers of protection, and rigorous operation and maintenance of process equipment. This paper describes how teaching process safety systems with a systemic “life cycle” approach can help ensure that students understand and can apply important process safety concepts and methodologies in support of ‘conservation of life’ and other design and operational goals.