There are two kinds of chemical plant shut down, i.e. planned shutdown and emergency or unplanned shutdown. An example of planned shutdown is as preparation for Turn Around or yearly preventive maintenance programs. Emergency plant shutdown can be triggered by many factors, such like electric power failure, machinery failure, instrumentation trouble and many more.

In both shutdown cases, there are safety precautions for shutdown activities of chemical plants that need to be taken into account. Such safety precautions are required to prevent potential hazards that commonly appear during plant shut down.

In fact, many people may underestimate chemical plant safety in shutdown condition. Of course there may no pumps running, no reactions occur or production process. But various potential hazards such as over pressure, fire and explosion still exist, which could present real danger to the plant and people inside it. (more…)