The performance of a venturi scrubber with a 1‐in. by 3‐in. throat was determined using monodispersed uranine‐methylene blue aerosols in the size range 0.8 to 3.0μm at throat velocities ranging from 109.6 ft/sec to 245 ft/sec. Separate measurements on the water separator showed that substantial aerosol removal took place in this unit, and the efficiency of the scrubber itself was calculated from these measurements plus overall efficiency measurements on the combination scrubber and separator. These results were compared with values obtained from a theoretical model and agreement was generally satisfactory, although the theoretical efficiencies were lower than the experimental efficiencies at the highest air velocities, and viceversa. This discrepancy may be due to a number of factors which are discussed.

The Process Safety Management (PSM) systems at the operating facilities in the Oil & Gas and in Chemical manufacturing industries have matured over the years and have become, at most facilities, very robust and sophisticated. These programs are administrated by Process Safety (PS) teams at both the corporate business units and plant levels and have been effective in reducing the number and severity of PS events across the industries over the past 25 years or so. Incidents however are occurring at a regular interval and in recent times several noteworthy PS events have occurred in the United States which have brought into question the effectiveness of the PSM programs at play. These facilities have been applying their PSM programs with the expectation that the number and severity of PS events would decrease over time. The expected result has not been realized, especially in context to those facilities that have undergone the recent incidents. Current paper reviews a few publicly available PS performance reports of Oil & Gas and Chemical manufacturing industries. The authors identified a few factors at play that have led to these PS events based on their experience, literature review, and incident investigation reports. Most of the factors are intertwined with multiple PSM elements and it requires a holistic approach to address them. Each of the factors is described and the path forward is proposed to improve the effectiveness of PSM programs.

No abstract