SOPHISTICATED
SAFETY TECHNOLOGY

solves the problems of industrial explosions

For years manufacturers have contended with industrial explosions from relatively unknown causes. Despite recent discoveries into dust explosions that have generated a wealth of new protection technology, most manufacturers remain in the dark about this serious problem and the available solutions.

One large manufacturer, however, Proctor & Gamble, has not only been open to this technology, they've helped pioneer its use, according to John McIntosh, a veteran process engineer at Proctor & Gamble. As the global Manager of Health, Safety & Environment for P&G's Food and Beverage Division, responsible for the performance, training and development of P&G facilities worldwide, McIntosh is no stranger to dealing with dust and gas deflagrations. Cv Technology - a company which provides expert engineering and consulting services for process evaluation and explosion protection system design, and a distributor of technologies like Q-Rohr, a quenching device originally developed by Rembe of Germany which enable safe indoor venting of process-driven dust explosions - has worked with Proctor & Gamble on a number of specific protection applications.

"One incident at a site in the early 90's that cost the company in excess of a million dollars, was the catalyst for my initial contact with the Rembe technology," McIntosh explains. "Fortunately, nobody was hurt, but there was a significant amount of equipment damage due to a deflagration."

When the particular process, which was operating at several facilities, was evaluated, the incident history indicated that a fairly major deflagration occurred about every ten years. Harnessing P&G's extensive incident database, they compiled a list of every facility incident stretching back over a thirty-year period.

Evaluating the two types of processes, one continuous and one batch, when they used pareto analysis to plot the data one important fact became very clear. While the process incident numbers were almost even, 99.5% of the dollars lost to the deflagration events were burning up in the continuous process.

"When we started looking closely at the continuous process, we realized that what was happening was not a dust explosion at all. It was actually a gas deflagration."

They reached this conclusion after testing revealed that the processor operated with a deficient oxygen atmosphere for an explosion. The really high-energy incidents were occurring after shutdown, when the internal oxygen level in the processor returned to normal. They tried a number of fixes, and even changed the processor sequence, but the solution proved elusive.

"NFPA 69 presents five options," McIntosh illustrates. "You can build the process strong enough to contain the explosion, but we couldn't do that. You can eliminate the oxygen, but that was impossible since it was a process heater that needed oxygen. Third, you take away the fuel. Since the combustible gases were actually coming from the commodity we were processing, that wasn't possible. We looked at active suppression, but it's a food grade product so we can't inject chemicals. The only option left was venting."

However, limitations on venting also presented problems. Unable to vent to a non-accessible area outdoors or an area where they could effectively restrict access, and faced with ducting limitations based on distance and the amount of venting they needed to provide, he decided to explore the Q-Rohr application.

"We were in no man's land. There just wasn't a way to navigate through the NFPA codes that said that the Q-Rohr was okay to use since it was only specified for dust explosions as spelled out in the German standards. My first question was: 'will the Rembe Q-Rohr work with a combustible gas?'"

"Since the quenching device was installed we've had one incident. We were down a fraction of the time compared to the original incident, which shut us down for a number of weeks. There was no damage to the equipment and the majority of the downtime, less than two days, was simply to verify it was okay to start the equipment back up. It met our expectation...to limit or even prevent the total scope of the damage," he concludes.

Cv Technology

ELECTRONIC PRODUCT

moves geese from company premises

Research indicates that the goose population is expanding into areas of human habitation at a tremendous rate and causing serious problems at corporate facilities.

An infestation of geese doesn't have to be gigantic to present a serious issue. At Petro-Canada in Oakville, Ontario, the company's internal Environmental Department received a community complaint about seeing oily geese. "The company has an open sludge basis," explains Roy Powell of Petro-Canada's Engineering Department. "It contained a mix of fuel oil, sludge and water; and the company is adjacent to residential areas and a city park." It became essential for Petro-Canada, a major petroleum producer, processor and distributor, to eliminate complaints by getting rid of the geese.

"From a long list of potential solutions," Powell says, "we tried fencing the basin and putting netting over the top." Petro-Canada purchased a GooseBuster and a Gator Guard. The GooseBuster system is designed to unsettle the geese, to keep them on guard, making it difficult for them to accommodate comfortably in the area. Geese love serenity; they do not like to be in a state of constant alert. GooseBuster does not damage the environment and it doesn't harm the geese. "I've received no more complaints," asserts Powell. GooseBuster re-educates the geese about where to be and where not to be.

Jim Orebaugh of Dovecote Bird Control Services uses one basic plan for relocating geese. While implementation varies with the site conditions, the plan principles remain the same. For the best placement of the four speakers to yield the greatest impact: experiment with the timing and sequence and volume of the GooseBuster's alarm/alert system. In some situations, it is possible to bounce the signals off buildings to expand the reach of GooseBuster. Add "reinforcement" as desired -- for example, dogs, rubber alligator heads, and balloons. Never let them get comfortable or complacent.

Bird-X Inc

PRE-PLACEMENT PHYSICAL CAPABILITY EVALUATION PROGRAM

helps companies match the physical capabilities of the worker to the physical demands of the job

INRTEK has been setting physical capability standards and conducting pre-placement physical capability evaluations and return-to-work evaluations in industry since 1981. They have proven the premise that most overexertion injuries occur because of a mismatch between the physical capabilities of the worker and the physical demands of the job. Through screening, this mismatch can be eliminated and, therefore, overexertion injuries can be significantly reduced.

In general, their clients have realized the following results:

* The incidence rate for overexertion injuries (strains and sprains) can be reduced as much as 86% when workers are correctly matched to their jobs.

* All other injuries (non-overexertion) can be reduced by as much as 50% for workers whose physical capabilities are matched to the physical demands of the job as the matched workers are less likely to be in a high risk situation.

* The average number of lost workdays per injury is 50% less for the matched worker.

INRTEK uses unique protocols to evaluate the low back, shoulders and knees of the worker and their case histories show the following results:

A frozen food processing plant implemented a pre-placement physical capability evaluation program to prove the effectiveness of matching the physical capabilities of the worker to the physical demands of the job. The study was specific to overexertion injuries to the shoulder, knee and back.

Applicants were evaluated and hired regardless of whether they were found to be matched or mismatched to the physical demands of the job. This provided an opportunity to observe the effectiveness of the INRTEK technology in a blind study with matched and mismatched workers. The injury rates of both groups were markedly different. The mismatched workers had more than two times more lost workdays per injury than matched workers. Matched workers accounted for only 14% of total lost workdays. Mismatched workers had more than three times more overexertion injuries than matched workers. This plant went from 5% of its workers having a back injury each year to less than .05% per year. The company also observed that matched workers are less likely than mismatched workers to have other kinds of injuries (slips, falls, contusions) as the matched worker is less likely to be in a high risk situation.

A newly opened manufacturing plant of plastic automotive parts conducted a pre-placement physical capability evaluation program. The company hired 55% of its employees without evaluating them, 39% after evaluating them and correctly matching them to the job, and 6% after evaluating them although they were mismatched to their positions. A blind study with matched workers, mismatched workers and workers who had not been evaluated provided the following results:

Mismatched workers had seven times more overexertion injuries than matched workers; workers who were not evaluated had five times more overexertion injuries than the matched workers; mismatched workers had three times more non-overexertion injuries than the matched workers; workers who were not evaluated had four times more non-overextertion injuries than the matched workers.

INRTEK

Canadian Industrial Equipment News February 2004

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