Safety Evaluation

Nowadays, Road Safety Inspections (RSI) are recognized as an effective tool for identifying safety deficiencies of road infrastructures. They represent a low cost process for the evaluation of the network safety performance. Its applicability in rural local roads, where accident data generally do not give enough information for the safety analysis, make the procedure very attractive. However, due to the subjective nature of the process RSI may give rise to disagreements which limit their effectiveness. The paper describes the RSI procedures defined by the IASP research program. The IASP project is funded by European Commission (DG TREN) and Province of Catania (Italy) with the scientific support and collaboration of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of University of Catania. The project is aimed at defining a methodological approach for the safety analysis and the restoration of rural highways specially suited for local rural roads. Various countries adopted RSI ...

Experimental results are reported on simulataneous heat transfer and gas dissolution during the direct-contact condensation of steam on water in the presence of CO2. A column filled with structured packing is used as condenser with the water in counterflow with the steam/CO2 mixture. The region along the column where the bulk of condensation takes place is controllable by suitable choice of the steam/water ratio. Measured local heat-transfer coefficients change by roughly an order of magnitude from the bottom to the top of the column. The extent of CO2 dissolution in the water/condensate under most conditions is unexpectedly high and depends strongly on the exit liquid temperature. A driving force based on the interfacial CO2 concentration, not the overall concentration difference used in conventional absorption operations, is suggested as more appropriate to describe the phenomenon. The data are complemented with preliminary results from a computational model based on the integration along the column of local heat- and mass-transfer rates.

Recently, we can see an increasing amount of dam damage or failure due to aging, earthquakes occurrence and unusual changes in weather. For this reason, dam safety is gaining more importance than ever before in terms of disaster management at a national ...

Inherent safety is a proactive approach for loss prevention and risk management. Considering the lifetime costs of a process and its operation, an inherent safety approach can lead to a cost-optimal option. Inherent safety may be achieved at any stage of process design; however, its application at the early stages of process design yields the best results. Despite being an attractive and cost-effective approach, the inherent safety methodology is not widely used. Many reasons have been attributed to this lack of widespread use; the nonavailability of systematic tools for the application of inherent safety principles is perhaps the most important reason.This paper presents a conceptual framework of an integrated inherent safety index (I2SI). It is called an integrated index because the procedure, when fully developed, is intended to consider the life cycle of the process with economic evaluation and hazard potential identification for each option. The I2SI is composed of subindices which account for hazard potential, inherent safety potential, and add-on control requirements. An application of the I2SI is also discussed. © 2004 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 23: 136–148, 2004

Downloadable! The City of Emeryville is small in area (1.2 square miles) and population (7000), but it is one of the most regionally connected cities in the Bay Area (California). Emeryville is situated at the eastern end of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, contains the intersection ...

The BeSafe (Behavioural Safety) Method, has been developed by International Mining Consultants Ltd for assessing and reducing risk in industrial contexts. BeSafe is an ergonomic method of risk analysis and reduction, targeted at prevention of accidents due to human errors and violations, and emphasising management strategies for action. In a consumer product environment, accidents are often due to similar human errors and violations. However, the product usage environment tends to be diffuse and variable, and its management difficult. Many controlling measures used to prevent accidents in industry do not apply in this environment. Using the BeSafe Method, it may be possible to structure safety assessments of the use of products and target improvement measures. The authors tested the relevant parts of the method on children's play equipment in playgrounds, and useful results were obtained. BeSafe could be adapted for other consumer products in a similar way.