Safeguards must be capable to prevent the hazardous event, and a critical element of that capability is response time. For instrumented safeguards, effectiveness depends on detecting abnormal process conditions and completing the required protective action within the maximum allowable response time.
This webinar by Kedar Kottawar, Senior Consultant, examines how to determine the time available for a safeguard to respond and execute its protective action before an undesirable consequence occurs. It discusses process dynamics, process safety time, maximum allowable response time, and instrumentation and control system contributions to overall response time, including sensor detection, logic solver execution, and final element action.
The session also presents practical engineering methods for establishing process safety time, ranging from expert judgment and simplified engineering calculations to mass and energy balances and first-principles dynamic simulations. Building on these concepts, the webinar demonstrates how strong understanding of process behavior can be used to quantify available process safety time, evaluate safeguard effectiveness, and verify that the safeguard responds fast enough to prevent the hazardous event.