A decision support database for inherently safer design

Abstract An inherently safer process relies on naturally occurring phenomena and robust design to eliminate or greatly reduce the need for instrumentation or administrative controls. Such a process can be designed by applying inherent safety (IS) principles such as intensification, substitution, attenuation, limitation of effects, simplification, etc, throughout the design process, from conception until completion. While the general principles and benefits of IS are well known, a searchable collection of inherently safer designs that have been implemented in industry has not been reported. Such a database of inherently safer design (ISD) examples would assist the process designer in the early stages of the design lifecycle when critical design decisions are made. In addition to examples of IS design which have been successfully carried out, the database that we have developed contains process incidents which could have been averted by the application of ISD. In this paper, details of the database, the query engine, and potential applications are presented.