Fire Engineering and Process Safety Guide

A process safety training guide in ten chapters on the science behind fire and explosion prevention in plants that handle flammable materials. It explains each idea with plant examples and ends with exercises and a summary.

What is inside

What fire is — combustion, the fire tetrahedron and the four ways to control a fire.

Oxygen and combustion — oxygen levels, inerting, ventilation and concentration limits.

Reactions and runaway — exothermic processes, runaway reactions and their safeguards.

How materials burn — fast- and slow-burning fuels, fire scenarios and key properties.

Burning rate by physical state — gases, liquids, solids, pyrolysis and dust.

Heat, ignition sources and energy — plant ignition sources, hot surfaces and minimum ignition energy.

Flammable range and ignition control — LFL, UFL and the safeguards that keep ignition away.

Three key temperatures — flash point, fire point and autoignition temperature.

Flash point classification — NFPA 30 classes, GHS categories and the LPG exception.

The chain reaction — free radicals, chemical inhibition, exercises and summary.

One PDF in widescreen slide format.

Who it is for

Process, HSE and operations engineers, plant supervisors, HAZOP and risk assessment team members, and students of process safety or fire engineering.

How to use it

Take the chapters in order: each builds on the one before. Work the exercises at the end, then look up the flash point, flammable limits and autoignition temperature of the materials on your own site from their safety data sheets and see which safeguards depend on them.

This is general training material. It does not replace the codes, standards and regulations that apply to your site, a competent person's design, or your own risk assessment. Property values differ by material and condition: take them from the safety data sheet and the applicable code, not from a general guide.