Health & Safety including Dust Control
Explosive topic
Don’t be left picking up the pieces – good design saves money. By GexCon’s Dave Price
Recently my colleague Barry Pomford wrote an updated article for the March issue of the HazardEx publication titled ‘’DSEAR & dust hazards – Where are we today’’. This focused on the progression of companies with respect to DSEAR compliance, many have indeed performed hazardous area classifications and so called zoned their facilities only then to ask themselves, where do we go from here?
Quite often little knowledge of published guidance and the applicable standards can lead to over zoning and the requirement for a massive capital expenditure to upgrade equipment to meet with the ATEX specification or other explosive area requirements that are nationally in force.
As indicated the perceived cost of compliance can become a barrier to the overall compliance progress. Often this perceived cost is based on scant information, poor knowledge and sometimes, just bad advice. What must be remembered is that the object of DSEAR & ATEX is to ensure the process operation / facility is safe.
What is often forgotten too, is the potential for secondary
explosions, triggered by the primary incident; these can have far reaching effects, be devastating and can result in serious injury to people remote from the primary event. In general the methods for reducing the potential for these secondary’s is normally straight forward and in many cases does not require huge capital expenditure either.
Incidents of secondary dust explosions within the USA over the last decade have resulted in significant loss of life and have generated several new federal laws to try and reinforce the requirements and guidance that has been in force for many years. More information including some excellent video’s can be viewed from the US Chemical Safety Board.
www.csb.gov The logic of the situation is that once you have established what the risks and zones are; improvements should be made to eliminate or reduce both. This process is often overlooked and companies often set out to “deal” with the zones that have been established. This approach does not necessarily comply with the philosophy of DSEAR and it is a tendency to overwhelm the problem rather than solve it. This approach is often the
www.solidsandbulk.co.uk
May 2010 • Solids & Bulk Handling 45
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72