Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (HIRA) of New Plate Mill, Rourkela Steel Plant & Standardising Electrical Maintenance Procedure for City Gas Distribution (CGD) Industry and Safety Aspects Related to Electrical Installations

Abstract

1.In the present scenario of safety engineering in various industries, identification of hazard and assessment of risk has become a key parameter to know the factor of safety of any process which is undergoing in an industry. For that reason Hazard Identification And Risk Assessment (HIRA) is conducted in almost every industry bi-annually to identify the hazards in the process, knowing that hazards can’t be eliminated, the risk associated with the hazard can be restricted to lower possible limits. The project was to conduct HIRA in New Plate Mill of Rourkela Steel Plant and produce the report of the entire HRA conducted for entire processes involved in every step of New Plate Mill. It was found that even if in most of the cases the risk level was well at acceptable range, but in some cases even in the fatality condition, the risk level was well below acceptable limit, which was bit of a concern. To solve this dilemma, the limit of exposure factor was kept constant at highest value, which then gave the desired result.

2.A project over electrical safety at Green Gas Limited, Lucknow/ Agra which is bulk handler and distributer of Compressed Natural Gas had quite research work to do. The work was to classify the area i.e. the two Mother stations into different zones of Hazardous area and selection of electrical equipments accordingly which were not only intrinsically safe but were also in increased safety factor.

Earthing of the Mother station was one of the industries key concern as there were no specific standardisation of Earthing for City Gas Distribution Industries. And the company was facing problem with variable soil resistivity for the reason which the earth electrode were to be changed periodically. So these problems were addressed quite successfully in this project and ample amount of evidence for all the suggestions are provided both numerically and theoretically.

Installations of lightning arrestor in the Mother station was to be done, for which probability of being struck by a lightning was to be calculated and then it was to decide whether lightning arrestor is to installed or not. And if installed, then, what should be the kind and type of materials to be used and all other specifications were suggested with enough evidence both numerically and theoretically.