Chemical and Nuclear Accident Analysis Methods

Process safety management (PSM) is a systematic approach to prevent unwanted releases of hazardous materials that can affect workers and people. PSM includes process technology, operating procedures, operational and maintenance activities, nonroutine activities, emergency preparedness plans, and training. Process safety management anticipates, evaluates, and mitigates chemical releases that may result from failure of process procedures or equipment. This chapter discusses the PSM techniques and rules that can be used in nuclear and chemical reactors. The strong kinship between chemical and nuclear engineering results in the similarity of their probabilistic safety assessment techniques. The chapter describes the qualitative methods of accidental analysis, such as checklists, what-if analysis, hazards and operability (HAZOP) analysis, and failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA). The quantitative methods of accidental analysis include parts count, FMEA, reliability block diagram, fault tree, and event tree. The chapter also discusses the common causes of reactor failures and their solutions by analyzing and quantifying these causes.