Hazid makes chemical processing plants safer
14 Jan 2003
Manufacturers will be getting a helping hand to make their chemical processing plants safer and more effective, thanks to new technology pioneered by a Loughborough University spin-out company, based at Loughborough Innovation Centre on the University Campus.
With a £45,000 Smart Award from the Department of Trade and Industry, Hazid Technologies will complete the development of a computer aid, HAZID, initiated by researchers in the University's Chemical Engineering and Computer Science Departments.
The new technology will help designers and plant operators to spot hazards such as fires or chemical leaks during the planning stage, before they arise whilst the plant is operating.
One of the standard industry methods for detecting such hazards is 'Hazop' studies, which are currently carried out by a team of experienced professional engineers who make intensive studies of the plant diagrams. These studies take several days each for a small plant unit and take many hours of the team's work. HAZID will help the Hazop team by automatically reading the plant diagrams, automatically applying Hazop logic to spot potential causes of hazards and then tracing their potential consequences.
Jim Madden, Company Director, said: 'HAZID will be able to automate the most engineer-intensive parts of the widely used Hazop method and will reduce the time and effort of these professional engineers while also producing a more consistent, complete and auditable analysis. New reporting and drill-down facilities will give the engineers faster, clearer insights into the results of the analysis and assist them to modify the design to eliminate the hazards before the plant is built.'
