29.1.2010

Inherent occupational health assesment in chemical process development and design -väitöskirja

The aim of this research is to protect workers health and well being in petrochemical plants, who are routinely exposed to various hazardous substances and conditions in their working environment by early inclusion of occupational health assessment starting from the design phase. We are developing methodologies for evaluating inherent occupational health hazards for the research and development, preliminary design and basic engineering stages. Basic engineering is the last step when modifications can still be made at a moderate cost and inherent safety features can be applied effectively. The overall plan is to develop hazard and risk assessment method for each stage that can be used independently based on the available data. In petrochemical plants, fugitive emissions are the main source of the continuous background exposure to workers. Therefore we also develop methodologies to estimate chemical concentrations due to fugitive emissions using simple process flow diagram (PFD), detailed PFD or piping & instrumentation diagram.
The methods can be applied when designing a petrochemical plant for early occupational health hazards assessment. Potential causes of illnesses among workers can be detected and changes on the process design can be made at higher degrees of freedom and lower costs. The methods can also be used on existing plants to improve working conditions by recommending appropriate countermeasures to reduce the workplace risk as low as reasonably practicable (ALARP).
Hankkeen vastuuhenkilö
Mimi Haryani Hassim