Safety and Risk Engineering

Course Lecturer: Dr. Musamali

Safety and Risk Engineering: Course outline

• Introduction to safety and risk engineering

 Safety, health and environmental management systems,

occupational safety and Health Management, security
management of industrial plants, safe working practices,
personal protective equipment (PPE), storage and handling
of materials and equipment

 Safety in transportation and automotive equipment, electrical

safety, shocks and their prevention.

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 Hazards and Risk Assessment

 Types of hazards such as mechanical, chemical,

environmental, radiation, etc. safety in hazardous areas,
industrial noise and noise control, industrial safety analysis.

 Risk analysis and risk management, industrial psychology,

ergonomics and accidents, safety in power plants,

 Fire prevention and fire fighting in plants, fire detection, fire

alarm and firefighting, systems, building design and fire
protection

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• Plant layout design and material

• Industrial safety

• Safety during project execution, safety management of

plants on commissioning and on maintenance, safety
training for employees and human resource development,
insurance policies for project construction, operation,
maintenance and personnel.

• Occupational health, first aid, occupational health and

industrial hygiene, environmental guidelines for power
plants, sustainable development, disaster management.

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Introduction and definitions

 Health can be defined as a state of complete physical, mental,

and social well being and not merely the absence of disease or
infirmity.

 Safety is the condition of being protected against physical,

social, spiritual, financial, or other consequences of failure,
damage error, accident or harm. Therefore, industrial safety is
the state of being safe in an industrial environment.

 Risk- Is the probability that a particular outcome will occur and

the severity of the harm involved.

 Hazard-Refers to something with the potential to cause harm

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if not controlled.
Hazard and Risk
Assessment
HAZARD
• Is a condition, or an object, or an activity or event with
the potential of causing injuries to personnel, damage to
equipment or structures, loss of material, or reduction of
ability to perform a prescribed function.

OR
• It is a scenario which, if it occurs, can cause harm or
have negative consequences to personnel, material,
equipment, or the environment.

OR
• An inherent chemical or physical characteristic that has
the potential for causing damage to people, property, or
the environment.
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Therefore Hazard is anything that can:

Cut you
Trip you

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Therefore Hazard is anything that can:

Burn you Crush you Cause you

pain

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Therefore Hazard is anything that can:

Hurt your Hurt your Make you

hearing eyes sick

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Work Hazard signs

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Hazards groups:

• Health hazards.

• Safety hazards, and

• Environmental hazards.

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A. Health Hazards
 can cause illness to an individual.

 may produce serious and immediate (acute) effects,

or may cause long-term (chronic) problems.

 may affect all or parts of the body.

 Someone with an occupational illness may not

recognize the symptoms immediately.

 e.g. noise-induced hearing loss is often difficult for

the affected individual to detect until it is well
advanced.
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Categories of Health Hazards

1. Chemical Hazards

2. Biological Hazards

3. Mechanical Hazards

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1. Chemicals Hazards

• Due to exposures to harmful chemicals ; solids, liquids, or

airborne matter such as mists, aerosols, dusts, fumes,
vapours or gases etc..

• Others include exposure to welding fumes or to combustion

products from fossil fuels,

Routes of entry –
• Inhalation, Eating, skin absorption. (inhalation is the main
route of entry)

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Images and symbols of chemical hazards

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2. Biological (or Biohazard)
• Biological hazards refer to hazards caused by organisms
and plants that are harmful to human health.

• These include parasites, viruses, bacteria, fungi , insects,

plants, birds, animals and humans.

• There are three major of routes of entry for micro-

organisms into our body

(i) through the respiratory system,

(ii) through contact with body fluids of the infected
(e.g. HIV)
(iii) contact with contaminated objects

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Biohazard symbols

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Occupations and workplaces where people may
come into contact with biological hazards

• Medical staff, cleaning staff and laboratory technicians in

the medical profession;
• Healthcare services;
• Cleaning services and rubbish collection ;
• wastewater treatment plants
• Indoor workplaces like entertainment premises,
restaurants and hotels;
• Agriculture, fishery, veterinary services, and
manufacturing industries that use plant- or animal based
raw materials.

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3. Mechanical Hazards

• Are hazards associated with power-driven machines which

results into Injuries.

• Machines driven by steam, hydraulic, electric ,pneumatic,

and solar.

• Both automatically and manually operated machines can

be mechanical hazards.

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Sources of mechanical hazards
• Overloading

• Misjudgment

• Taking it simple

• Environment

• Equipment life cycle

• Inadequate training

• Human weakness
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Common Mechanical Injuries

Cutting and tearing:

Seriousness depends on the degree of how much
damage is done to skin, veins, arteries, muscles,
nerves, and bones

Shearing:
 Cut with shear
 Severing of appendages or skin
 Amputated fingers, hands and legs

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Crushing:
 Occurs when part of a body caught between two hard
surfaces that progressively move together.
 Can be divided into two:
(i) Two surfaces (at least one in motion) pinching a
body part.
(ii) Run-in-points: Meshing gears, rotational objects
impacting at some point upon body parts.

Breaking: divided into simple, compound, complete and

incomplete
 Simple - Skin, is not pierced by broken bone
 Compound - Bone breaks through skin
 Complete - Divide bones into 2 or more pieces
 Incomplete - Affected bone is in one piece but cracked

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• Straining and spraining
 Straining of muscles- Muscles are over stretched
or torn.
 Spraining of ligaments- Results with tearing of
ligaments in a joint

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Puncturing:
• Results when an object penetrates into the body.

• Greatest danger is to internal organs, blood system, or

nerve tissue.

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B. Safety Hazards

• These are the most common and will be present in most

workplaces at one time or another. They include unsafe
conditions that can cause injury, illness and death.

• A safety hazard is any thing that can have an adverse impact

on your safety.

• An injury caused by a safety hazard is usually obvious.

• For example, a worker may be badly cut by knife or sharp

edge.

• Safety hazards cause harm when workplace controls are not

adequate.

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Check for Safety hazards and don’t ignore

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C. Environmental Hazards

• Is the state of events which has the potential to

threaten the surrounding natural environment and
adversely affect people's health.

• Incorporates topics like pollution and natural

disasters such as floods, storms, earthquakes etc.

• For example, a worker who drains an effluent

containing colouring pigments into a sewer may not
be aware, of the effect on the environment.

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 RISK ASSESSMENT
• Risk is the probability that a particular adverse
event occurs during a stated period of time.
OR
• A probability or threat of damage, injury, liability, loss, or
any other negative occurrence that is caused by external
or internal vulnerabilities, and that may be avoided
through preemptive action.

In this course, we define risk as:

• Risk means a chance that someone will be harmed by a
hazard.

• Thus it is possible to estimate the risk associated with

the hazard (i.e. risk assessment).

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Risk Assessment

Risk assessment is the determination of quantitative or

qualitative value of risk related to a concrete situation or
a recognized hazard.

Thus is the process of:

• Identifying hazards,
• Analyzing / evaluating the associated risk
• Determining appropriate ways to eliminate or control the
hazard.

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The main aim of the risk assessment :

• To protect workers’ health and safety.

• Helps to minimize the possibility workers or the

environment from being harmed by work-related
activities.

• Determine if existing control measures are adequate or if

more measures should be taken.

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• RA should be done by a competent personnel with good
working knowledge of the workplace.

• Involve / include staff, supervisors & workers who work

with the process under review as they are the most
familiar with the operation.

• Include both people familiar with the work area, as well

as people who are not – in this way you have both the
"experienced" and "fresh" eye to conduct the inspection

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Risk Assessment Procedures
1. Identify hazards;

2. Evaluate the likelihood of an injury or illness occurring, and

its severity;

3. Consider normal operational situations as well as non-

standard events such as shutdowns, power cuts,
emergencies, etc.;

4. Review all available health and safety information about the

hazard such as MSDS’s, manufacturers information etc.;

5. Identify actions necessary to eliminate or control the risk.

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6. Monitor and re-evaluate to confirm the risk is controlled,

7. Keep any documentation or records that may be necessary

(e.g. detailing the process used to assess the risk,
outlining any evaluations, or detailing how conclusions
were made).

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When assessing take into account:

• The methods and procedures used in the processing,

use, handling or storage of the substance, etc.,

• The actual and the potential exposure to workers.

• The measures and procedures needed to control such

exposure by means of engineering controls, work
practices, hygiene practices & facilities

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 Hazard Identification

• Hazards may be identified through a data-driven

(quantitative) methodology or qualitative process such as
discussions, interviews and brainstorming.

• It must be done systematically in order to ensure that all

areas of operation where hazards may exist have been
identified.

• Existing material should be reviewed with the aim of

identifying gaps or hazards.

• Identification of the hazards may be done by individual or

group-based assessors

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 Hazard Identification cont’d

Individual approach

• The individual-based approach involves one or two assessors

conducting identification of hazards across all aspects of a
system.

• This particular method may be appropriate for an initial and

high level identification of hazards.

Examples of questions which may assist in identifying hazards.

• What would possibly go wrong?

• What could lead to something possibly going wrong?
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 Hazard Identification cont’d
Group-based approach
• The group-based approach involves a group of experts
conducting the identification exercise. It is suggested
that this group consists of selected managers and
staff.

To be sure that all hazards are found:

• All aspects of the work, include non routine activities
such as repair, maintenance or cleaning are examined.

• Look at accident / incident / near-miss records,

• Look at the way the work is organized or “carried

out" (include experience and age of people doing the
work). 38
• Foreseeable unusual conditions should be looked at.

• Examine risks to subcontractors, visitors or the public.

• Include groups that may have a different level of risk such

as young or inexperienced workers, persons with
disabilities, or new or expectant mothers.

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 Table 1
Example of Risk Assessment
Task Hazard Risk Priority Control
Delivering Drivers work alone May be unable
product to to call for
customers help if
needed
Drivers have to Fatigue, short
occasionally rest time
work long hours between
shifts
Drivers are often Increased
stuck in very chance of
congested traffic collision
Longer working
hours
Drivers have to lift Injury to back
boxes when from lifting,
deliverying reaching,
product carrying,
etc.

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How do you rank or prioritize the risks?

• Ranking or prioritizing hazards is one way to help

determine which hazard is the most serious and thus
which hazard to control first.

• Priority is usually established by taking into account the

employee exposure and the potential for accident, injury
or illness.

• Assigning a priority to the hazards, creates a ranking or an

action list.

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How do you rank or prioritize the risks?

The following factors play an important role:

• Percentage of workforce exposed,
• Frequency of exposure,
• Degree of harm likely to result from the exposure
• Probability of occurrence.

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Options to rank or prioritize risks
One option is to use a table similar to the following as
established by the British Standards Organization:

Risk Assessment by the British Standards Organization

Severity of Harm
Likelihood of
Harm Moderate Extreme
Slight Harm
Harm Harm
Very unlikely Very low risk Very low risk High risk

Unlikely Very low risk Medium risk Very high risk

Likely Low risk High risk Very high risk
Very likely Low risk Very high risk Very high risk
Note: These categorizations and the resulting asymmetry of the matrix arise from the
examples of harm and likelihood illustrated within the British Standard. Organizations should
adjust the design and size of the matrix to suit their needs.
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Definitions for Likelihood of Harm

• Very Likely - Typically experienced at least once every

six months by an individual.
• Likely - Typically experienced once every 5 years by an
individual.
• Unlikely - Typically experienced once during the working
lifetime of an individual.
• Very unlikely - Less than 1% chance of being
experienced by an individual during working lifetime.

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Definitions for Severity of Harm

• Slightly Harmful : accidents and illnesses not causing

prolonged distress (eg. eye irritations, headaches, etc.)

• Moderately harmful : accidents and illnesses causing

moderate, but prolonged or periodically recurring distress
(eg. dermal allergy, wounds, simple fractures, etc.)

• Extremely harmful : accidents and illnesses causing

grave and permanent distress and /or death (eg.
Amputations, cancer, second- or third degree burns on a
very large body surface, etc.)

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Definitions for Severity of Consequences

• Very low - These risks are considered acceptable. No

further action is necessary other than to ensure that the
controls are maintained

• Low - No additional controls required unless they can be

implemented at very low cost (in terms of time, money,
and effort).
– Actions to further reduce these risks are assigned a
low priority. Arrangements should be made to ensure
that the controls are maintained.

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• Medium – Consider lowering the risk, where applicable, to
a tolerable level or an acceptable level, but take into
account costs of additional risk reduction measures.

• High - Substantial efforts should be made to reduce the

risk. Risk reduction measures should be implemented
urgently within a defined time period.

• Very high - These risk are unacceptable. Substantial

improvements in risk control measures are necessary so
that the risk is reduced to a tolerable or acceptable level. If
it is not possible to reduce the risk, the work should be
prohibited.

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RISK Analysis:

• Is the process of evaluating the consequences and

frequencies of occurrence of hazardous activities.

• There are two types of Risk Analysis:

1. Quantitative analysis

2. Qualitative analysis

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Quantitative Risk Analysis

Basically, this approach employs two fundamental

elements;

i. The probability of an event occurring (e.g. p1=0.01,

and P2 = 0.03); and

ii. The likely loss (e.g. Ksh = 10,000, and Ksh 5,000)
should it occur.

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 Probability of Loss Rank:
hazard (Probability of
success)
Alt. 1 P1=0.01 5,000 Better
Alt 2 P2=0.03 10,000 Worse

It is thus theoretically possible to rank events in order of

risk and to make decisions based upon this.

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• The problem with this type of risk analysis is
unreliability and inaccuracy of the data.

 Probability can rarely be precise.

• Nevertheless the drawbacks, a number of organizations

have successfully adopted quantitative risk analysis.

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Qualitative Risk Analysis
• Probability data is not required and only estimated
potential loss is used.

• This is by far the most widely used approach to risk

analysis.

• Makes use of a interrelated elements:

e.g. Threats and vulnerabilities

Threats: These are things that can go wrong or that

can 'attack' the system.
 e.g. Fire: If fire breaks out the disaster will be very
serious!

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 Vulnerabilities: These make a system / environment
more prone / likely to be attacked by a threat i.e. or
make an attack more likely to have some success
or impact.

e.g. The environment is more vulnerable to fire if

inflammable materials (e.g. paper) are present.

Thus where there is flammable materials

(vulnerability!) the risk in case of fire (threat!) is
very high!

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Types of Risk assessment methods:
 CHA - Concept Hazard Analysis
 ETA - Event Tree Analysis
 FMEA - Failure Mode and Effect Analysis
 FMECA - Failure Modes, Effects and Critically
Analysis
 FTA - Fault Tree Analysis
 HAZOP - Hazard and Operability Studies
 PPHA - Preliminary Process Hazard Analysis
 QRA - Quantified Risk Assessment
 Task - Task Analysis
 What-If -Analysis

 Only some will be discussed!! 54

Type 1 Methods,

Analysis starts with a component failure and tries to

investigate the possible effects on the occurrence of
hazards.

Compone HAZARD
nt Failure S

Type 1 Methods: Investigate the

possible effects on the occurrence of
hazards
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Type 2 Methods

They start with a specific hazard and try to trace back by

which sorts of component failures they may be caused.

Component HAZARDS
Failure

"Type 2 Methods: Trace back by which

sorts of component failures they may
be caused " 56
Accidents at work place
• An accident is an unfortunate incident that happens
unexpectedly and unintentionally, typically resulting in
damage or injury.

Why do accidents occur at works place?

Examples:

1. Equipment maintenance
2. Equipment modification
3. Human error
4. Labelling
5. Leaks
6. Entry to vessels

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1. Preparation for Maintenance

Accidents can occur because the equipment was not

adequately prepared for maintenance .

(i) Failure to isolate

– A pump was being dismantled for repairs. When the

cover was removed, hot oil, above its auto
ignition temperature came out and caught fire.
Three men were killed and the plant destroyed.
Examination of the wreckage showed that the pump
suction valve was open and the drain valve shut.

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(ii) Removal of Hazards
• Many accidents occurs because equipment though
isolated correctly, was not completely freed from
hazardous materials.

For example:

– An acid tank was prepared for welding and permit

issued. It was 40 days before the maintenance team
was able to start. During this time a small
amount of acid which had been left inside the
tank attacked the metal, producing hydrogen. No
further tests were carried out. When welding started
an explosion occurred.

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(iii) Tagging (Identification/Labelling).

On many occasions the wrong pipe line or piece of equipment

breaks and causes accidents due to wrong/poor identification
or labelling.

For Example:
– An out of service pipeline was marked with a chalk at
the point at which it was to be cut. Before the fitter
could start working, a heavy rain washed off the chalk
mark. The fitter “remembered” where the chalk mark
had been. He was found cutting his way with a
hacksaw through a line containing a hazardous
chemical.

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(iv) Procedures not followed

It is recommended that before a piece of equipment is

serviced, the the maintenance team is given a permit to
work or “work permit” which sets out:

– What to be done
– How the equipment is isolated and identified
– What hazards, if any, remains
– What precautions should be taken

• Work permits asked for goggles to be worn. They

were not always worn and inevitably someone
was injured.

• People doing routine tasks become careless!

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(v) Quality of maintenance
Many accidents have occurred because maintenance work was
not carried out in accordance with the (often unwritten) rules
of good engineering practices.

2. Modifications

(i) Equipment modifications

Accidents occur because changes were made in plants and
these changes had unforeseen side effects.

(ii) Process Modification

Accidents can occur because of change in process material

or conditions: A slight change in raw material may cause a
big loss in production!

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3. Human Error

They know what they should do, want to do it, and are
physically and mentally capable of doing it. But they forget
to do it!

(i) Wrong Valve opened/closed

Operator forgets to close a valve or close a wrong valve.

For example:

The pump feeding an oil stream to the tubes of a furnace

failed. The operator closed the oil valve and intended to
open a steam valve to purge the furnace tubes. He opened
the wrong valve. There was no flow to the furnace and the
tubes overheated and collapsed.

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(ii) Ignorance of the Hazard

• An operator had to empty some tank trucks by gravity.

He had been instructed to :
– Open the valve on top of the tank
– Open the drain valve
– When the tank was empty, close the valve on top of
the tank.

• He had to climb onto the top twice. He therefore decided

to close the vent before emptying the tank. To his
surprise the tank was sucked in.

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4. Labelling

Many accidents have occurred because equipment was

not clearly labelled.

For example:
Six drums of hypo (Sodium hypochlorite) had to be
added to a tank of water. Some of the drums were not
labelled. One contained sulphuric acid. It was added
after some of the genuine hypo and chorine was given
off. The men adding the hypo were affected by the
fumes.

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5. Leaks
Many leaks have been discussed under other headings
including:
– leaks which occur during maintenance,
– as a result of human errors,
– as a result of overfilling storage tanks, etc.

6. Entry to Vessels
• Many people have been killed or injured because they
entered vessels or other confined spaces which had
not been thoroughly cleaned and freed from
Hazardous material.

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Typical hazard for Specific equipment
A. Storage Tanks

(i) Overfilling
– caused by lack of attention, wrong setting of valves,
errors in level indicators etc.,

– For this reasons many companies fit high-level alarms

to storage tanks.

– However overfilling has occurred because of the alarms

were not tested regularly or warnings were ignored.

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(ii) Sucking in
• Incidents have occurred because the operators did not
understand how a vacuum works. see “Ignorance of the
hazard”

(iii) Explosions
• Causes may include, concentration above Lower
Explosive Limit, and electricity sparks due to electrical
fault or charges of static etc.

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B. Pipe and Vessel Failure

• Failure of construction teams to follow instructions,

• The most effective ways of reducing pipe failure are to:
• Specify design in detail.
• Check the construction closely to see that the
design has been followed and details not
specified have been constructed according to
good engineering practice.

C. Centrifuges
• Many explosions, some serious, have occurred in
centrifuges handling flammable solvents because the
nitrogen blanketing was not effective.

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D. Pumps

• The biggest hazard with pump is the failure of the stuffing

glands, sometimes the result of bearing failure leading to
massive leak of flammable, toxic or corrosive chemicals.

Relief Valve
• Very few incidents occur because of faults in relief valves
themselves. When equipment is damaged because of the
pressure could not be relieved it is usually found
afterwards that the relief valve had been isolated, wrongly
installed, or interfered with in some other way.

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End of lecture

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