CHE3723 Safety in Process Plant Design Page1

Tutorial Chapter 12:

1. The water flow to a chemical reactor cooling coil is controlled by the system shown in Figure
1. The flow is measure by a flow transmitter; the controller and the control valve manipulate
the flow of the liquid. Calculate the overall failure rate, the unreliability, the reliability, and
the MTBF for this system. Assume a 1-yr period of operation.

Figure 1: flow control system. The components are linked in series.

2. The water storage tank system in Figure 2 is the standard storage system for water and
chemicals. Overfilling of storage tanks is a common issue in the process industries. To
prevent overfilling, the storage tank is equipped with a high-level shut down system. The
high-level shutdown system is connected to a solenoid valve that stops the flow of input
stock.

Figure 2: Level control system with alarm

(a) Develop an event tree for this system using the “failure of level transmitter” as a initiating
event. Given that the level indicator fails 5 times/year, estimate the number of overflows
expected per year. Use the following data:
System Failure/demand
High-level alarm 0.01
Operator stop flow 0.2
High-level switch system 0.01

(b) Develop a fault tree for the top event of “Storage tank overflows”. Use the data in table 12-1
to estimate the failure probability of the top event and the expected number of occurrences per
year. What are the most likely failure modes? Should the design be improved?

Eunice Phang Siew Wei |