SENG 312, Spring 2012 Homework 1

January 26, 2012 1. Due on Thursday, February 02, 2012 A 100-employee firm has the following injury and illness record for the year: Case 1 - Work-related injury; no workdays lost Case 2 - Work-related illness; 5 days away from work Case 3 - Work-related injury; one workday away from work; nine more work days in restricted work activity Case 4 - Injury; able to stay at work, but for two weeks employee was unable to do regular job and was assigned to another one. Case 5 - Illness; not work-related a. Calculate the LWDI. b. Calculate the total injury/illness incidence rate. c. Calculate the number-of-lost-workdays rate. 2. Three process units are in a plant. The units have FARs of 0.5, 0.3, and 1.0, respectively. a). What is he overall FAR for the plant, assuming worker exposure to all three units simultaneously? b). Assume now that the units are far enough apart that an accident in one would not affect the workers in another. If a worker spends 20% of his time in process area 1, 40% in process area 2, and 40% in process area 3, what is his overall FAR? 3. Except for the probability labeled as impossible, state the usual ratio between adjacent probability step values.

4.

As a safety engineer at your firm you will establish a Risk Assessment Matrix for property damage. You have the following information: - A risk higher than 10-3 [$/year], is unacceptable or intolerable - A risk higher than 10-6 [$/year], is acceptable provided that risk reduction efforts are underway. - Life cycle of the project is 100 years (exposure interval). You will perform the following tasks: a) Plot iso-risk curves b) Establish and include a matrix according to the procedure discussed in class. Use log-log for straight iso-risk curves on your risk matrix. c) Distinguish the various risks zones, and include your matrix with the iso-risk contours. Follow a conservative approach when you assign the risk zone to a matrix cell that belongs to more than a single zone. d) Identify the risk zone for each of the following combinations of severity and probability: ($500; 3x10-6/yr), ($800K; 5x 10-7/yr).

5. The following is a Risk Assessment Matrix. The dark dot represents the results of your risk analysis. This risk level requires immediate action to prevent a shutdown of your facility. Iso-risk Severity

Probability Assume that any type of countermeasure will reduce the risk by one order of magnitude. Which of the following countermeasure should you employ? Explain. o Warning device o Safety device o Engineering safety feature 6. The probability of emission of sulfur dioxide from a stack in a sulfuric-acid plant is 10-2 [events/year]. The plant has a history of releases of sulfur dioxide. Therefore, any emission in the coming 5 years (period of hazard exposure to consider) will result in a $1M fine. A sophisticated emission monitoring system (EMS) at a cost of $70K is assumed to reduce unintended emissions to almost zero probability. Answer the following questions: a) Show your analysis to determine the cost effectiveness of the sophisticated EMS. State your team recommendation to your manager regarding purchase and installation of the EMS. An alternative to the EMS is a simpler sampling system at a cost of $25K. This system is expected to reduce the annual probability of emission to 10-3 [events/year]. State your team recommendation to your manager for this system.

b).

7.

The overall costs of a firm are $1M. Assuming a 30% probability of failure, calculate the minimum capital gain value (U) that will allow the firm to stay in business (break even point).