PDM-based tool for hazard identification in plant design

Hazard identification is essential at every stages in the life cycle of a process plant: the techniques normally adopted to this aim, require high costs and time since engineers and safety experts have to examine a huge amount of different types of data and representations (such as process schemas, equipment diagrams, electrical schemas, 3D piping layout, etc.), often linked by complex relationships. The organization of the information typically offered by PLM systems allows the development of tools for capturing and reusing the design information that is necessary to evaluate specific plant aspects concerning potential hazards, and providing, when possible, automatic verification of safety criteria. The tool presented in this paper is based on an extended plant model that includes all the data and relationships representing the knowledge on which the supported hazard identification techniques are based on. To this aim a meaningful set of security criteria has been identified to be respected to avoid critical configurations. These criteria are classified according to specific properties and the defined taxonomy is the basis on which the algorithms necessary for analysis and recognition of critical plant situations are developed.