Chapter 32

Process safety and instrumentation

This chapter discusses instrumentation issues related to industrial process safety. Instrumentation
safety may be broadly divided into two categories: how instruments themselves may pose a safety
hazard (electrical signals possibly igniting hazardous atmospheres), and how instruments and control
systems may be configured to detect unsafe process conditions and automatically shut an unsafe
process down.
In either case, the intent of this chapter is to help define and teach how to mitigate hazards
encountered in certain instrumented processes. I purposely use the word mitigate rather than
eliminate because the complete elimination of all risk is an impossibility. Despite our best efforts
and intentions, no one can absolutely eliminate all dangers from industrial processes1 . What we can
do, though, is significantly reduce those risks to the point they begin to approach the low level of
background risks we all face in daily life, and that is no small achievement.
An important philosophy to follow in the safe design is something called defense-in-depth. This is
the principle of using multiple layers2 of protection, in case one or more of those layers fail. Applying
defense-in-depth to process design means regarding each and every safety tool and technique as part
of a multi-faceted strategy, rather than as a set of mutually-exclusive alternatives.
To give a brief example of defense-in-depth applied to over-pressure protection in a fluid
processing system, that system might defend against excessive fluid pressure using all of the following
techniques:
A pressure-control system with an operator-adjusted setpoint
High-pressure alarms to force operator attention
A safety shutdown system triggered by abnormally high pressure
Temperature control systems (both regulatory and safety shutdown) to prevent excessive
temperature from helping to create excessive fluid pressure
1 For that matter, it is impossible to eliminate all danger from life in general. Every thing you do (or dont do)
involves some level of risk. The question really should be, how much risk is there in a given action, and how much
risk am I willing to tolerate? To illustrate, there does exist a non-zero probability that something you will read in
this book is so shocking it will cause you to suffer a heart attack. However, the odds of you walking away from this
book and never reading it again over concern of epiphany-induced cardiac arrest are just as slim.
2 Also humorously referred to as the belt and suspenders school of engineering.

2567