The advent of the industrial revolution in the nineteenth century increased the volume and variety of manufactured goods and enriched the quality of life for society as a whole. However, industrialization was also accompanied by new manufacturing and complex processes that brought about the use of hazardous chemicals and difficult-to-control operating conditions. Moreover, human-process-equipment interaction plus on-the-job learning resulted in further undesirable outcomes and associated consequences. These problems gave rise to many catastrophic process safety incidents that resulted in thousands of fatalities and injuries, losses of property, and environmental damages. These events led eventually to the necessity for a gradual development of a new multidisciplinary field, referred to as process safety. From its inception in the early 1970s to the current state of the art, process safety has come to represent a wide array of issues, including safety culture, process safety management systems, process safety engineering, loss prevention, risk assessment, risk management, and inherently safer technology. Governments and academic/research organizations have kept pace with regulatory programs and research initiatives, respectively. Understanding how major incidents impact regulations and contribute to industrial and academic technology development provides a firm foundation to address new challenges, and to continue applying science and engineering to develop and implement programs to keep hazardous materials within containment. Here the most significant incidents in terms of their impact on regulations and the overall development of the field of process safety are described.

This paper presents a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) model, simulating film boiling based on Rayleigh–Taylor (R-T) instability, using the volume of fluid (VOF) method to track the liquid/vapor interface. Film boiling of cryogenic liquids (e.g., LNG and liquid nitrogen) is simulated to estimate the vapor generation rate during an accidental spill. The simulated heat fluxes were compared with heat fluxes obtained from Berenson and Klimenko correlations. The effects of wall superheats on the bubble generation frequency were studied. This study helps researchers to understand the physics of film boiling that are useful during the risk assessment of a cryogenic spill scenario. For example, it was found that the bubble released from the node and the antinode points between the consecutive bubble generations cycles do not follow the alternating nature under the realistic film boiling conditions. Therefore, empirical expressions assuming alternating bubble generation might be unsuitable for cryogenic vaporization source term estimation.

Data analysis Execution Preparation