Hazardous Area Classification in Petroleum and Chemical Plants

Book excerpt: Due to an increase in the wide-range of chemicals in petrochemical processing industries, as well as frequency of use, there has been a steady rise in flammability problems and other hazards. Hazardous Area Classification in Petroleum and Chemical Plants: A Guide to Mitigating Risk outlines the necessities of explosion protection in oil, gas and chemical industries, and discusses fire and occupancy hazards, extinguishing methods, hazard identification, and classification of materials. This book addresses these issues and concerns and presents a simple hazard identification system to help offset future problems. It offers information on the hazards of various materials and their level of severity as it relates to fire prevention, exposure, and control. The system provides an alerting signal and on-the-spot information to help protect lives in an industrial plant or storage location during fire emergencies. Understanding the hazard helps to ensure that the process equipment is properly selected, installed, and operated to provide a safe operating system. This text also includes a summary of the rules, methods, and requirements for fighting a fire, introduces various hazard identification systems. • Includes a summary of the rules, methods, and requirements needed to extinguish a fire • Introduces various hazard identification systems • Includes concepts for layout and spacing of equipment in process plants The book serves as resource for plant design engineers as well as plant protection and safety personnel in planning for effective firefighting operations.