Study On Safety Evaluation Technology Of Plant Layout Based On Domino Effect

The domino effect is one of the most serious hazards in petrochemical plant. The study on safety evaluation technology of plant layout based on domino effect will be helpful to the optimal design of plant layout and thus reduce the domino risk of a plant. Firstly, the domino risk evaluation technologies that currently used were collected and analyzed in this work, and two shortages were concluded: (1) the mathematic models used in the evaluation process are very complicated, which decrease the effectiveness of operation; (2) the evaluation simply focus on the absolute value of domino risk, but ignores the rationality of the plant layout in consideration of domino effect, while the rationality is an important indicator of the gap between current layout and theoretical optimal layout. Secondly, in response to the above shortages, a new concept of ‘domino effect irrational degree’ was proposed to evaluate whether a layout is rational in consideration of domino effect. Finally, based on the domino effect theories and the principle of ‘easy to implement’, the mathematic expression of ‘domino effect irrational degree’ was established.

Keywords: domino effect; plant layout; safety evaluation; optimal design