Sigma-HSE Newsletter - April 2023

FREE Technical Webinar: Understanding Fire and Explosion Properties of Dusts/Powders

Manufacturers need to understand if their materials are flammable, and what risks are inherent in the material being handled. SDS data provided can help but is not always comprehensive enough if process conditions are not under ambient conditions (i.e., elevated pressure, elevated temperatures) or a mixture.

What you’ll learn:

• The relationship between materials, the testing suite and what information each test provides on their potential flammability and explosivity.
• How to use testing information to support your basis of safety for unit operations and what you should do if you receive unexpected results.
• Partnering with Sigma-HSE to create bespoke/customised testing conditions to match your process operation and prove your safety case.

This webinar is best for:

• Safety Engineers
• Environmental Health Safety Specialist
• Risk Engineers
• Process Engineers and Process Designers
• EHS Specialists, Managers, Supervisors and Engineers?

The Event

When: Wednesday, 26th April 2023 10:00 BST

Where: Online, just register for free HERE.

Please email us with any questions before the event at [email protected].

Is your DSEAR Assessment Comprehensive Enough for Insurance Compliance?

In recent years, the breadth of DSEAR (Dangerous Substances and Explosive Atmospheres Regulations) compliance has expanded. At Sigma-HSE, we have seen areas such as local council amenities, residential tower blocks and schools increasingly ask for more thorough DSEAR assessments to be undertaken.

A key factor currently driving DSEAR expansion is the insurance industry and their need to know if you store or process combustible materials and if so, whether you are DSEAR compliant. This is part of their own risk mitigation strategy and reinforces the HSE’s policy of enforcing appropriate levels of protection for employees.

From our experience speaking with clients, insurers are increasingly dissatisfied with inadequate DSEAR assessments that often do not cover:

• Storage, Processing and Waste removal of flammable materials.
• Inadequate identification of combustible or explosive properties of materials.
• Insufficient consideration of electrostatic ignition risk.
• Inadequate consideration of Hazardous Area Classification (HAC) for flammable atmospheres.
• Failure to identify suitable ‘basis of safety’ for unit operations.

If your DSEAR assessment is inadequate, you may not be insured. Don’t take the risk have your DSEAR assessment independently verified by a professional process safety specialist.

LEARN MORE

HAZID: Your Safety Partner for all Stages of Process Design

A HAZID can be undertaken before other risk assessments in a variety of scenarios including new plant and process design. The lifecycle model below aids in the integration of process design, allowing better decisions to be made with the result dictating what additional safeguards might be needed.

The flexibility and thoughtful nature of the HAZID is appropriate for the design stage as it provides good information for later risk assessments. If, for example, a plant is heavily manually operated and all scenarios for the loss of containment are aligned with human error, the HAZID will point to a specific study aimed at reducing human error. Equally, if there is an automated plant and all scenarios discovered point to automation failures i.e., level transmitters or temperature transmitters, it might point to a functional safety study to reduce risk.

Ultimately, the HAZID informs process design and once the design has been finalised a HAZOP study or DSEAR Assessment can be undertaken.

For more on the application of HAZID and access to our in-depth webinar please follow this link.

Resources Library

Learning from our Process Safety Experts

To access our repository of technical articles and on-demand webinars, providing a wealth of insight into mitigating fire and explosion risk, check out our website resources page.