(54a) Resources for Teaching Process Safety That Are Managed or Have Been Developed By the Center for Chemical Process Safety

Process safety focuses on reducing the risks associated with both the toxic, reactive, flammable, and explosive properties of materials, and hazardous operating conditions such as high pressures or temperatures. AIChE, through its Undergraduate Process Safety Learning Initiative (UPSLI), has developed three major process safety teaching programs designed to help "pave the way for those currently tasked with developing and improving process safety courses." The three UPSLI programs are (1) online curricula using the Safety and Chemical Engineering Education (SAChE) modules, (2) in-person workshops to build faculty process safety competence, and (3) in-person undergraduate process safety bootcamps to build student competence.

This presentation will introduce each of the UPSLI initiatives and discuss how the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS), through its network of industrial process safety experts, has helped develop these resources for academia. The CCPS resources include process safety-related tools that can be used by instructors and students (as well as professionals) when performing process safety studies.

The first area is the SAChE Certificate Program. This program is a cooperative effort between the CCPS and engineering schools that provides process safety teaching materials for undergraduate or recently graduated engineers. After thirty years of collaboration, the 30+ SAChE modules have evolved into interactive learning modules, with a dynamic curriculum that makes incorporating process safety education into standard engineering curricula easy and engaging.

The second UPSLI area is the Faculty Workshops. CCPS, through AIChE, partners with industry leaders to provide faculty with Process Safety Workshops at sponsoring companies. These workshops are hosted at an industrial plant, showing instructors how process safety is put into industrial practice and demonstrating how important process safety is to the design and operation of the plant.

The third UPSLI area is the Process Safety Student Bootcamps. These boot camps are hosted at the school, introducing engineering students to methods that companies use to manage process safety. In addition, these boot camps demonstrate how important process safety is to both process and equipment design. Again, like the faculty workshops, the boot camps are supported by resources through the CCPS.

This presentation will conclude by introducing additional process safety tools that can be used in academia to help teach process safety. These tools, supported or developed by CCPS, include the Chemical Reactivity Worksheet (CRW), the Chemical Hazards Engineering Fundamentals (CHEF) Calculation Aid, and the publication of the textbook Process Safety for Engineers – An Introduction, Second Edition through Wiley in 2022. A few years ago, CCPS created its CCPSf Process Safety Fundamentals Certification Program. The CCPSf specifies 24 of the SAChE modules that must be passed to earn the certification. In addition, the CCPS has created several seven-minute videos describing process safety designs for specific equipment or introducing a process safety concept.