Sigma-HSE Newsletter - November 2024
FREE On-Demand Webinar: Incident & Near Miss Investigation Methods - The Events and Causal Factors (ECF) Technique
Effective incident and near miss investigation is essential for understanding the factors that lead to safety events and preventing them from happening again. The Events and Causal Factors (ECF) technique is a structured approach that helps identify and analyse the events leading up to an incident or near miss, as well as the factors that contributed to it. The ECF method helps teams focus on what went wrong and why, not just on the immediate causes.
Once the causal factors have been identified, the next step is to look deeper using tools like the ‘5-Why’ methodology to determine the root cause. It’s important to note that the root cause is almost always a failure in the management system, not a personal error. This distinction ensures that individuals are not blamed for mistakes and that responsibility for preventing reoccurrence lies with the organization and management.
In this webinar, we covered:
Register and watch for free HERE .
Selecting the Right Electrostatic Testing Package
Electrostatic charging will occur when solids or liquids are in contact and move relative to other materials, or by induction. This occurs in many industrial processes i.e., pneumatic conveying, pumping, dispensing operations, centrifuging, mixing.
All operations are susceptible to charge generation, but if charges are allowed to accumulate and discharge in the presence of a flammable atmosphere, a fire and/or explosion may occur.
The generation and accumulation of electrostatic charge is not generally in and of itself hazardous. Rather, a hazard is created when the static accumulation gives rise to electrostatic discharges that are sufficiently energetic to ignite a surrounding combustible dust, flammable liquid, or gas atmosphere.
Proper assessment of electrostatic hazards requires certain information on the properties of the plant and the materials handled/processed.
Get in touch to learn more about selecting the right testing package for your electrostatic issues HERE .
From the Engineers’ Desk
Communal Workspace DSEAR
Scope
We recently encountered a client who required a DSEAR study at a communal working space as the air conditioning system to the server room was using flammable refrigerant fluid.
Identified Hazard
The refrigerant R32 is difluoromethane. This can be flammable when mixed with air at more than 14% by volume. The question was whether there may be any leaks that could accumulate to flammable concentrations. At the outdoor unit, incidental leaks would be diluted by the outdoor ventilation and ignition sources are excluded in the immediate vicinity of the overpressure vent.
In a worst-case scenario, all the refrigerant could leak into one of the indoor air-conditioned spaces. A large room space would have enough air to dilute the leak, but in a small room, accumulation to flammable concentrations is possible. The server room itself was the smallest room that had an indoor unit, and thus presented the greatest risk.
?Recommendations
The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) has released specific guidance where a given mass of R32 refrigerant corresponds to a given minimum room size (also accounting for imperfect mixing in the room and a safety factor). In this case the server room was smaller than the minimum, so specific leak detection systems were recommended in this room.
Outcome
Although this particular outcome had short term costs to the business, we managed to keep the existing air conditioning system in place without any disruptions to the business.
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.