Overview

Safety-instrumented systems (SIS) are designed to mitigate the risks of safety-critical processes or systems. Safety-critical systems are those that, if not properly maintained or controlled, can malfunction in such a way as to cause a significant risk to safety or another hazard. Examples of critical systems or processes are nuclear reactors, oil refineries, or even an automobile.

The SIS is designed to engage when the critical system experiences a failure. The SIS will automatically detect unsafe conditions in the critical system and prevent a hazard or restore the system to a safe state. An example of this might be an automated emergency shut-down in a reactor vessel, or even the airbag in a car. Due to their nature, SIS have stringent reliability requirements. When designing one, you need to know that it will work when required. This is where Fault Trees (FT) come into play. Using analytical FT methods, Reliability Workbench can evaluate the reliability of a SIS and help you determine its probability of failure on demand (PFD).

Speaker

David Wiseman, Customer Training and Support at Isograph, Inc.

David has worked for Isograph Ltd for 18 years, providing training and support in the use of a variety of RAMS software tools. He regularly trains reliability and maintenance engineers in the use of Monte Carlo simulation techniques as applied to availability analysis and reliability centered maintenance.

David has been a speaker at two ARMS Reliability Week conferences, Reliability 2.0 and EuroMaintenance 2014, and has provided numerous technical presentations to engineers working in a wide variety of industries around the world.

David graduated from the University of Liverpool in 2002 with a First Class Masters degree in physics, and was awarded a PhD in nuclear structure by the same institution in 2006; he Joined Isograph shortly afterwards.

Any opinions are the presenters' own and do not necessarily represent those of IChemE or the PMC Special Interest Group. The information is given in good faith but without any liability on the part of IChemE.

Webinar recording