Browsing by Author "Wimalasiri, KYD"

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    item: Conference-Abstract
    Computer aided hazard analysis for mixing operation: case study of an instant string hopper mixture
    (2006) Wimalasiri, KYD; Gunasekera, MY
    Rapid industrialization and the severe industrial accidents occurred during the past decades have increased the public awareness on the negative impacts of present technologies used and the hazards posed by potential accidents in process industries. Developing countries in particular with high population densities and industrial zones where many industries are situated in close proximity and surrounded by densely populated neighbourhoods have a high affinity to cause severe consequences resulting from accidents. So it is of utmost importance to make efforts towards strengthening safeguards and managing risk to protect human beings, property and environment by increasing reliability of hazardous systems. This need has directed the technical community towards the development of hazard analysis and forecasting techniques.
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    item: SRC-Report
    Development of a Hazard Analysis Tool for a Cinnamon Oil Extraction Unit ,
    (2016-08-22) Wimalasiri, KYD; Gunasekera, MY
    This paper presents a tool that can be used to determine the hazards involved in a steam distillation unit used in extracting cinnamon oil from cinnamon bark. It is a computer aided tool called 'DistHaz'. In this tool any deviation from the normal operational condition of the unit is considered as an incident. These incidents as deviations are fed in to 'DistHaz' to obtain an analysis of the hazards involved with that deviation. Such analysis includes causes of the deviation and the resulting consequences from it. During operation of the unit this tool is able to provide information on the actions that the operator of the unit should take when a deviation occurs. Each such deviation actually occurred is recorded in a database within the tool. This data is then used in determining the time in which the maintenance of the unit should be carried out. The maintenance schedule is useful in alerting the operators to carryout repairs and services timely for safer operation of the unit. Many methods developed today for hazard analysis need large inputs of time and expert manpower. In a developing economy with the development of the process industry in size and complexity the frequency as well as the severity of accidents occurring can be expected to increase. The development of this hazard analysis tool is an effort towards establishing a prevention measure of such accidents.
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    item: SRC-Report
    Use of hazard analysis techniques in preventing and reducing process industrial accidents
    Wimalasiri, KYD; Gunasekera, MY
    Increasing experiences of process industrial accidents in the modern industries together with the social and legal pressures have raised the necessity of developing more effective safety evaluation and accident scenario analysis techniques. With the development of chemical process industry and 'industrial zones' in Sri Lanka, the hazard posed by accidents can be expected to increase, if appropriate prevention measures are not been established. Increasing experiences of process industrial accidents in the modem industries In the process of developing more effective hazard evaluation methods such as advanced automated hazard analysis tools with minimum human judgment, application and utilization of currently available hazard analysis techniques should be studied as a preliminary step. In this paper, the above application and use of two hazard analysis techniques in preventing and reducing hazardous events in a unit operation commonly found in the Sri Lankan small and medium scale process industries is discussed. Initially commonly found unit operations are identified and one of them, that is the mixing operation is analysed for potential incidents that can happen during its operation and the hazards associated with them. Accident scenario analysis techniques, namely fault tree analysis and event tree analysis are then used in analysing potential two deviations and the associated hazards in the above unit operation. This analysis is then used in determining the measures to prevent and reduce dangerous events from occurring.