Accident prevention approach throughout process design life cycle

•Earlier study shows that the accident contributors are originated throughout process design lifecycle.•The paper presents a new lifecycle approach based on accident knowledge.•Potential problems are promptly identified and safety considerations at each design stages are suggested.

The accident rate in the chemical process industry (CPI) has not been decreasing although majority of accident causes have been identified and could have been prevented by using existing knowledge. These recurring accidents show that the existing knowledge has not been used effectively. In this paper, accident knowledge learned from earlier accident analyses are utilized to predict the common design errors during chemical plant design. An accident prevention approach throughout process design life cycle is proposed for a safer design consideration where designers are guided to identify common design errors, accident contributors and critical points to look for. The accident prevention approach has been applied to analyze the BP Texas City Refinery Explosion and Fire tragedy.