Module Catalogue 2024/25

Pre Requisite Comment

N/A

Co Requisite Comment

N/A

Aims

The aim of this module is to enable students to gain knowledge and skills in the use of risk and safety tools, become aware and understand appropriate safety regulations and principles, understand hazards, utilities, and materials for pressure vessels in the process industry. The students will equally become aware of the valves and their features used in the process industry.

Outline Of Syllabus

Process Safety

• Responsibility and Regulations:
History and rationale behind regulations such as: COMAH (Control of Major Accident Hazards) Regulations 2015,
SEVESO Directive.

• Health and Safety principles:
Chemical, physical, and biological hazards. Storage, transportation, and disposal including waste management.
Plant Safety and Best Practice Legislation COSHH and COMAH. Risk hierarchy (i.e., eliminate, substitute,
contain, protect workforce). Emergency planning. Protective equipment, training, and management issues.

• Process Safety:
Based on previous disasters, illustrating Safety, Health and Environment & Loss Prevention using case studies
and videos of previous key incidents.

• Risk and Safety Tools:
Grounding in ample risk and safety tools such as Hazard Operability (HAZOP), Hazard Analysis (HAZAN), As Low
as Reasonably Practical (ALARP). Includes HAZOP workshop & assessments.

• Combustion:
Overview of combustion.

Engineering Practice

• Material considerations affecting vessel design.
Introduction to process utilities for applications including heating and cooling duties. Introduction to
electrical utilities. Practical hands-on introduction to wiring for safety circuits.

• Practical introduction to key features of pumps and valves used in process safety and utility delivery.

• Graphical and numerical representations of a heat exchanger network. Network synthesis based on 'pinch' design
rules.

Intended Knowledge Outcomes

By the end of this module, a student will be able to:

• Understand the role of management of safety and environmental protection and the role and provision of
major regulatory legislation within the process industries. Discuss landmark incidents and events that have
shaped the development of safety in the process industries (AHEP4 M2).

• Understand the concept of Inherently Safe Design and use tools, methods and methodologies that are applied
in identifying and analysing process hazards (AHEP4 M1, M2, M16, M17).

• Understand and perform calculations for steam, cooling water and electrical utility requirements (AHEP4 M1,
M2).

• Explain and perform pinch analysis and heat exchanger network design for a specific process and show clear
understanding of the underpinning principles (AHEP M1, M16, M17).

• Identify materials and their properties for pressure vessel design and perform material property calculations
that are related to pressure vessel design (AHEP4 M1, M2).

Intended Skill Outcomes

By the end of this module, a student will be able to:

Use the HAZOP method of identifying hazards. Students will then be able to recognize, enumerate and analyse a range of risk and hazardous conditions. They will be capable of formulating, modelling, and calculating HAZAN scenarios. They will understand combustion, its uses and dangers and will have knowledge of associate equipment used to prevent explosions and detonations (AHEP4 M2, M16, M17).

Perform calculations of material strength, stress calculations for cylindrical and spherical vessels, calculations in cooling tower systems, and assessing process utilities and electrical utilities (AHEP4 M1, M2).

Design or modify a flowsheet to achieve minimum heating and cooling utility and synthesise a corresponding heat exchanger network. Ability to develop physical property models for application in flowsheets synthesis (AHEP M1, M16, M17).

Acquire basic wiring skills for utility systems (AHEP4 M5, M16).

Oral presentation and report writing. Through study of this module the students will enhance their general transferable skills in problem solving and presentation (AHEP4 M16, M17).

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Safety:

Aspects of safety are introduced in logical steps, along with relevant industrial case studies, which illustrate and provide the reasons for the application of legislature as well as the tools and methods covered in the course.

Although formal lectures underpin the safety syllabus, the module contains practical sessions, which allow the students to apply and solve actual safety related engineering problems. For example, HAZOP provides scope for innovative and creative thinking, requiring the use of logical problem solving skills.

Engineering Practice:
The Engineering Practice element provides a basis for general engineering knowledge by use of lectures explaining the fundamental principles of process and electrical utilities, and practical laboratory exercises. The practical sessions outline procedures to solve problems and experiments to test hypotheses. These provide hands-on experience and enable critical thinking skills in learning and discovering.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

This module contains significant practical components, for example there are 2 workshops within the safety part and a range of lab work as part of the engineering practice topics. Therefore it is considered reasonable 30% of this module should be assessed as coursework.

The formal lectures in safety introduce the theoretical reasons and methods of safety. However, since safety is conceptually a frame of mind, assessed practical workshops are used to emphasise and establish the concepts to the student. In addition, students are expected to successfully complete the HAZOP and Heat Exchange Network (HEN) oral assessment . For this reason 30% of the total is attributed to HAZOP and HEN coursework.

The EA1 lab work represents a significant part of the engineering practice topics. Formative assessment is used to measure the understanding and the acquired practical ability students gain in understanding and carrying out experiments.

The students' ability and comprehension of theoretical aspects in both safety and engineering practice will be assessed in a 2 hour written exam amounting to 70% of the total mark. This value will allow a sufficient depth and breadth of theoretical knowledge to be thoroughly examined.

General Notes

Original Handbook text: