Safety

Send feedback about this page to Dr. Matthew Cooper (North Carolina State University)

Syllabi, schedules, course notes

• Safety and Chemical Engineering Education (SAChE)
  • SAChE Certificate Program

Animated Videos

• U.S. Chemical Safety Board: More than 70 videos that contain animations of chemical plant accidents. Here are links to three examples:

    

Simulations

• Reactor explosion (University of Michigan)

Virtual Experiences and Games

• Contents Under Pressure (CUP) is a virtual game which addresses the topic of human decision making, which has been found to be the root cause of many process safety incidents. CUP provides a digital virtual environment designed to more realistically situate students in an authentic scenario in which they must balance multiple constraints, including process safety decisions. This more authentic environment is critical toward practicing process safety decision making skills, as in-class discussions, tests, etc. do not capture factors such as time or money constraints, or coworkers’ influences that may alter decisions in the real world and reveal a different level of moral development and understanding.
  • STEM4All video describing the background, gameplay and student perspectives of CUP
  • Link to CUP website (contact Matt Cooper at mecoope3@ncsu.edu if interested in access code)

Assessment Tools

• The Engineering Process Safety Research Instrument (EPSRI) is a survey tool designed to measure students’ moral reasoning in the context of
  process safety decision making using process safety scenarios drawn from personal experience and reports from the Chemical Safety Board. Each scenario is followed by a decision prompt and 12–15 considerations. The EPSRI has been deemed valid and reliable in measuring senior chemical engineering students’ moral reasoning within process safety contexts. 
  • Link to EPSRI
  • Information on scoring of the EPSRI is given in the following paper: B. L. Butler, C. Bodnar, M. Cooper, D. D. Burkey, and D. D. Anastasio, “Towards understanding the moral reasoning process of senior chemical engineering students in process safety contexts,” Educ. Chem. Eng., vol. 28, pp. 1–12, 2019, doi: 10.1016/j.ece.2019.03.004.

Modules and Tutorials

• Course-specific modules, tutorials, and safety resources (University of Michigan): Course safety modules for material and energy balances, thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, heat and mass transfer, separations, reaction engineering, and process control. Safety tutorials and other resources.

Software

• Chemical Reactivity Worksheet: A free software program for the chemical reactivity of thousands of common hazardous chemicals
• CAMEO Chemicals: Database of hazardous chemicals

Useful Links

• Toxic Substances
  • Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry: ASTDR's mission is to prevent exposure and adverse human health effects due to exposure to hazardous substances
  • Society of Toxicology: Organization representing toxicologists
  • American Conference for Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH): Information on the threshold limit values (TLV) for toxic chemicals
  • 3M Respirator Selection Guide: Hazardous properties for a large number of chemicals, including odor thresholds, and respirator selection guides
• AIChE
  • AIChE Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS): This AIChE website contains lots of resources and lists of available publications on process safety
  • AIChE Process Safety Progress Journal: This journal is supported by the AIChE Safety and Health Division and has leading research articles on process safety
• U.S. Government Agencies
  • U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration: Access to all the regulations related to process safety, including 1910.119 process safety management of highly hazardous chemicals. This includes permissible exposure limits (PEL) promulgated by OSHA
  • U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: Provides government resources for emergency management. This includes regulations, publications, databases and tools
  • U.S. National Library of Medicine: Toxicology data network provided by the U.S. National Library of Medicine. It includes databases on toxicology, hazardous chemicals, environmental health and toxic releases
  • U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission: Product safety information
• Mary K. O’Connor Process Safety Center (Texas A&M University): Snapshot of what's happening in process safety
• Process Safety Web Page (Michigan Technological University): Educational materials on process and laboratory safety
• Knovel On-line Engineering Reference Library: Large library of safety reference materials
• European Process Safety Center (ESPC): Resources from the European perspective
• Singapore Society of Loss Prevention (SLP): Resources in the Asian community