Dynamic Simulator for Evaluation of Safety Objects in Batch Process

In this paper, a novel methodology for batch plant safety analysis is proposed using process dynamic modelling. Batch processes are divided into several safety objects that are linked to operation level. Safety objects are evaluated by dynamic simulation and fault propagation models are generated. By using this model, an improved fault tree analysis (FTA) method using house event-time (HET) is proposed and can be developed for calculating the probability of failures. The timely dependent failures can be considered as unavailability of safety objects that can lead to accidents in plants. Finally, the rank of safety object performance index (PI) can be estimated using importance measures. PI shows the prioritization of safety objects that should be investigated for safety improvement in the plants. The output of this method can be used for optimal policy in safety object improvement and maintenance. The dynamic simulator was constructed using Visual Modeler (VM, Omega Simulation, Japan) and the loss of containment (LOC) at polyvinyl chloride (PVC) batch process is used for case study.