Using AIChE's Concept Warehouse to Help Teach Process Safety-Related Engineering Science

The AIChE Concept Warehouse is a web-based instructional tool that enables chemical engineering instructors to better provide their students with concept-based instruction. Whereas some students may focus more on rote memorization and learning rather than on conceptual understanding, it is known that concept-based instruction helps students use their knowledge better when given new situations, especially after graduation. The Concept Warehouse can be used in addition to other tools, such as homework assignments, to help reinforce the concepts fundamental to understanding the engineering sciences being addressed.

The focus of this presentation is to describe a potential use for the Concept Warehouse when discussing the engineering design of equipment specifically being used to help reduce process safety risks. By integrating the key concepts for these engineering controls within the context of effective process safety systems, sets of warehouse “pallets of information” can be created and used. The background for developing these pallets includes our AIChE Code of Ethics, which states first that we “hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of the public and protect the environment in performance of [our] professional duties.” Thus, it is essential that everyone handling hazardous materials manage them safely to protect people from the material’s harmful properties, such as their toxicity, flammability, explosivity and/or reactivity.

In addition, recent developments for effectively managing process safety programs have focused on three essential foundations: safety culture and leadership, process safety systems, and operational discipline. This presentation will describe the key concepts for each of these foundations, the key concepts of the eight process safety systems required to effectively manage the process safety risks, and then provide some specific engineering design concept-related examples that are discussed in a process safety course or the senior design class. The engineering designs include preventive and mitigative controls, from the equipment’s inherently safer design to the engineering controls, such as pressure relief systems, which are used to help reduce the risks. The concepts behind the design and management of these engineering controls are essential for students, helping them understand and successfully manage their future process safety risks once they graduate.