Application Of HAZOP In The Risk Assessment Of Petrochemical Unit

As one of the most important primary industries, petrochemical industry is of great importance to the national economy. With the increasing scale and complication of process industry production, safety problems caused by which have become major social problems. Risk assessment utilizes system engineering approaches to pre-identify, analyze and evaluate the potential risk in the system (industry projects or industry production), which provide basis for the development of basic disaster prevention measures and management of decision-making. The purpose of risk assessment is to seek the lowest accident rate, the minimum damage, the most optimal yield and achieve system safety. It is an important measure of ensuring safety in production.As a significant approach of risk assessment, Hazard and Operability Study (HAZOP) is especially suitable to the chemical industrial systems. HAZOP uses enlightening guide words to study the deviations of processing parameters, analyze the causes of the deviations, identify the consequences of the deviations and protection layers, and implement risk analysis. Using the approach can effectively identify the system risks and make reasonable proposals to high risks, which can ensure the safety of the system in terms of techniques.In this paper, the risk assessment of polyethylene plant (two production lines) was carried out by HAZOP. Risks are identified effectively and proposals are made accordingly. Causes data base of common nodes deviations in petrochemical production is formed. Semi-quantitative risk matrix is applied to the risk assessment of plants tentatively.