Risk Analysis Screening Tool – CCPS Project 280

A spreadsheet based Risk Analysis Screening Tool (RAST) is available through the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS), courtesy of the Dow Chemical Company. The tool allows users to identify hazards and understand risks including causes, consequences and probabilities. RAST can be used for existing or proposed installations to facilitate MOC reviews, assess compliance with risk criteria, or evaluate proposed designs.

The users can input the type of equipment being used along with the equipment characteristics, chemical data, process conditions, and the plant layout. Using these inputs, the tool is used to help identify hazard scenarios and evaluate the consequences of representative loss of containment scenarios. RAST also allows the users to specify their own hazard scenarios based on their own knowledge of the process. Users can also input their own risk ranking matrix. With the hazard scenarios and the risk matrix, the user can select those scenarios of most concern and use the tool to create a Layer of Protection Analysis (LOPA) spreadsheet for the process.

As an example a comparison of RAST calculated scenario identification and consequence results to actual case studies from the CSB will be presented. Courses on how to use RAST, and how to adjust the pre-loaded default parameters are available.