Inherently Safer Design from Overpressure Protection Viewpoint

Pressure relief and flare system design is mostly evolving or iterative throughout the various engineering process design stages. This iterative nature stems from the need to capture the impact of engineering design changes on this critical layer of protection, often viewed as the last line of defense,.

The systematic review of pressure relief and flare system design basis at various engineering design and project execution phases will not only help to ensure adequate overpressure protection, but can also highlight opportunities for inherently safer processes and project cost savings. Often, evaluating trade-offs between process safety design improvements against project economics may be challenging.

In this paper, several case studies are presented to demonstrate how inherently safer design options and cost-effective solutions could be implemented across the various engineering design and project execution phases to minimize gaps in terms of overpressure protection between early and as-built designs.