Kletz's legacy for developing countries: Simple systems based on inherently safer design

Abstract The now well-known theory surrounding Inherently Safer Design (ISD) developed by Trevor Kletz has spread worldwide thanks to journals and almost unlimited communication between members of process safety all around the globe. This means that developing countries, such as Colombia, now have the possibility of applying it to their specific situations, which can often be resolved if the safety hierarchy is followed in order to attack problems from the design stage, a solution that might not seem instinctive, but is actually effective since there isn't a “reduction” strategy, but a removal of hazards. To apply this methodology to a specific Colombian case study, a previous quantitative risk analysis of an LPG storage tank farm in Colombia is revised and reformulated by developing an optimization (MINLP) based on the principles of inherent safety in order to design the same process (LPG pressurized storage) so that the available engineering tools can be used to mathematically formulate the inherent safety criteria. This allows determining the design conditions and safety measures needed to reduce the likelihood of an incident, being consistent with the Inherent Safety philosophy, which seeks a change of mental structure when designing processes, just like Trevor Kletz proposed and established as a new paradigm for Process Plants/Equipment design. The results of the project allow obtaining a specific optimal configuration of control, wall thickness, operating pressure and tank dimensions, pointing out a decrease of around 20% on the operating pressure.