The Ostrava area in the Czech Republic is characterised by a high concentration of heavy industries. The waste gases produced there have high energy values and may be recombusted. To secure the continuous supply of the combustion gases, it is necessary to store the gases in gasholders. Six large gasholders in the area of one town represent untypical sources of major accident risks. The gasholders create, thanks to their size, landmarks in the whole city and constitute, from the point of view of prevention of major accidents in heavy industries, practically the most significant hazard with regard to the chemical composition of coking, converter and blast furnace gases, when the main dangerous components are carbon monoxide, hydrogen and methane. It follows from comprehensive results of the risk analysis that the highest risk is connected with a release of a large amount of converter gas containing CO (up to 60%), when the population in the close vicinity may be endangered. With reference to a historical connection between some gasholders and residential areas, the gasholder for storing coking gas (8% of CO) and pipe lines even several kilometres long were assessed as sources of risk as well. Some of the gasholders also represent significant risks of major accidents to surrounding public transport. In the nearby area of two gasholders a road with tramlines leads that could be, under specific conditions, a cause of gas cloud explosion. Furthermore, the risk analysis verified the usability of some recognised methods for risk assessment. On the one hand, the inapplicability of the IAEA-TEC-DOC- 727 screening method to the assessment of gasholders was proved in spite of the fact that this method has been often employed in the Czech Republic. Modelling the dispersion of a released toxic cloud by means of the ALOHA program also brought problems with regard to specific operational conditions (especially the low overpressure of gas in the gasholder). On the other hand, the Dutch methodology, Purple Book, namely both the introductory selection method and other procedures for the assessment of probability and risk acceptability, proved itself to be suitable. The systematic method HAZOP approved itself as an appropriate method for the detailed analysis of causes of potential accidents and possible operational problems. In the conclusion it is possible to state that with the assessed gasholders, total safety as well as reliability is rather high; the reliability and the safety may be considered to be societally acceptable. Nevertheless, with regard to the age of the gasholders, high-quality maintenance and inspection of the conditions of these installations must be done. Furthermore, it is necessary to assess the reliability of human factor in detail and to evaluate operational problems arisen, which will lead to improvement in major accident prevention with the large gasholders.


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    Titel :

    Loss prevention in heavy industry: risk assessment of large gasholders


    Beteiligte:
    Bernatik, A. (Autor:in) / Libisova, M. (Autor:in)


    Erscheinungsdatum :

    2004


    Format / Umfang :

    8 Seiten, 7 Bilder, 4 Tabellen, 8 Quellen




    Medientyp :

    Aufsatz (Zeitschrift)


    Format :

    Print


    Sprache :

    Englisch




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