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Safety system performance terms: Clearing up the confusion

Journal Article · · Hydrocarbon Processing; (United States)
OSTI ID:6340301
 [1]
  1. Industrial Control Services, Inc., Houston, TX (United States)
The problem of ambiguous terms is particularly acute when dealing with safety systems. These systems are often referred to as emergency shutdown systems or interlock systems. For example, ask a chemical engineer, an electrical engineer, a control systems engineer and a safety engineer the meaning of failure, availability,' reliability,' or integrity' and you will probably get surprisingly different answers. The problem is real and is causing considerable confusion in the safety control industry. Standards have either recently been released or are under development and certain terms are either vague, misleading or contradictory. This will cause a variety of interpretation problems of those attempting to use and implement the standards. The paper defines the above four terms and discusses system modeling and redundant systems, two other areas of confusion.
OSTI ID:
6340301
Journal Information:
Hydrocarbon Processing; (United States), Journal Name: Hydrocarbon Processing; (United States) Vol. 72:2; ISSN HYPRAX; ISSN 0018-8190
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English