Systemic risks management in complex process plants: Challenges, opportunities, and emerging trends

Abstract

The BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster has reminded us, once again, the potential for systemic failures in complex engineered systems. But such systemic failures are not limited to the chemical and petrochemical industries alone. The 2003 Northeast electrical power blackout was a systemic failure. Financial disasters such as Enron, WorldCom, subprime derivatives market, and so on, also belong to the same class. Given the size, scope, and complexity of these modern engineered systems and their interactions, it is becoming increasingly difficult for people to anticipate, diagnose and control serious abnormal events in a timely manner. Practitioners in the process industries view this as the next major challenge in control systems research and application. There are two different, but related, components of the overall systemic risks management problem. One deals with the problem of process safety during real-time operations. The other deals with safety issues during the design and/or modifications of the plant or the processes. In this paper, I will present an overview of the challenges and the opportunities. Recent progress has promising implications on the use of intelligent systems for a variety of applications in the chemical, petrochemical, and pharmaceutical industries for inherently safer design, operator training, abnormal events management, and optimal process operations.

The four Rs performance indicators of water distribution networks

“…Water distribution networks (WDNs) consist of multiple interconnected components that collect, treat, store and distribute water between sources and users. High interdependency and nonlinear interactions makes such system fragile, so that a small perturbation propagates in numerous ways and causes the cumulative impact on system failure (Venkatasubramanian, 2010). Viewed from this perspective WDNs serve as a good example of complex systems.…”

Integrated Data (i-Data), Mining and Utilization Approach for Effective Flare Management Strategies

“…The main challenges in data acquisitions are (1) availability of data in a timely manner and (2) the integration of manually documented flaring data that the online system cannot document (e.g., corrective actions taken by control operators and cause of process upset) between the various departments (technical, environmental, operational, and maintenance). − ,,− …”

“…The main challenge faced by statistical and research institution is the lack of readily available information about the flaring incidents and its properties. The lack of both data availability and flare management industrial practices in literature have hindered the academic (nonindustrial) research community from developing suitable mitigation and management strategies when it comes to flare. − …”

The Development and Testing of SAfER

“…Most problematically, accidents can occur when unprecedented situations—unforeseen or unimagined situations—emerge from interactions among system components. In such situations nonlinear interactions between system components and the environment produce system behavior that has not been anticipated and that can be difficult to control (Venkatasubramanian, 2010). Some recent major industrial accidents include the BP Texas City petroleum refinery explosion in 2005; the Imperial Sugar explosions in Port Wentworth, Georgia, in 2008; the blowout of the Macondo well and subsequent loss of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010; and the Fukushima nuclear power plant explosions in 2011.…”