Best Starting Point to
Comprehensive Process
Safety Education
Milos Ferjencik
University of Pardubice, Faculty of Chemical Technology, Institute of Energetic Materials, Studentska 95, 53210 Pardubice,
Czech Republic; milos.ferjencik@upce.cz (for correspondence)
Published online 30 April 2007 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/prs.10183
Instruction in process safety began at the Faculty of
Chemical Technology, University of Pardubice, in the
nineties. In 1994, a course named the Safety Engineer-
ing was formed. We aimed to equip our students with
a theory that would orientate them in safety problems
during their professional lives. Similar to analogous
courses at other universities, the Safety Engineering
course tends to follow basic steps of the quantitative
risk analysis (QRA). An accident analysis and two basic
notions—a system and a hazard—were selected as
starting points of the course.
But after a few years of experience we felt that the
Safety Engineering course did not represent exactly
what the majority of our students needed. Although
the concept of risk analysis represents a fundamental
part of any process safety theory, there is another con-
cept that seems to be essential for professionals
involved in the process industry—safety management.
We started to recognize that an introduction into com-
prehensive process safety education should be divided
into two stages. The safety management and the risk
analysis should represent focal points of the first and
the second stages, respectively. Two stage arrangement
of the process safety course seems to suit needs of our
students better than the previous scheme. After the
idea of division of the process safety course had arisen,
a new starting point for the comprehensive safety edu-
cation had to be found. An old approach of Kletz’s on
‘‘learning from accidents’’ showed itself to be suitable
to fulfill this role most naturally. Ó 2007 American
Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 26:
195–202, 2007
Keywords: teaching, courses, risk analysis, safety
management, learning from accidents
Ó 2007 American Institute of Chemical Engineers
Process Safety Progress (Vol.26, No.3)
INTRODUCTION: A TRADITIONAL APPROACH AND ITS WEAK POINTS
Everyone knows typical safety instructions: brief
commands, usually without any motivation to follow
them, as in an electrical appliance guide, e.g. ‘‘Do not
disable the power cord grounding plug. The ground-
ing plug is an important feature. Use only the power
cord supplied.’’
Traditional safety teaching usually quotes certain
instructions, adds a historical background to them and
explains the physics or chemistry of dangerous inter-
actions and protection against them. It lists safety pro-
visions used in practice and explains how they work.
However, the traditional teaching does not usually ask
whether any alternative provision is possible, and why
just the listed provisions were selected. It does not
evaluate quantitatively how the officially required pro-
visions contribute to safety and it does not compare
them with potential alternatives. It does not attempt to
identify potential alternatives systematically.
Objections against the traditional way of safety
teaching can be summarized into two groups
1. Pedagogical objections: There are no questions;
and answers are prefabricated. Teaching is not in-
teresting technically. It does not provide a basis for
creative thinking about safety.
2. Technical objections: The approach represents pure
empiricism. It contains no systematic identification
of alternatives, no theory enabling their identifica-
tion, selection, evaluation and comparison in the
context of safety.
Or even more briefly: the approach lacks a reasona-
ble theoretical concept. Students need to learn a
theory which will help them to identify, select, evalu-
ate, and compare safety provisions in their professio-
nal field. Our primary task is not to teach them a set of
specific safety provisions. We should give them a theo-
retical tool that will help them to orientate themselves
September 2007 195
Figure 1. Basic steps of quantitative risk analysis according to Ref. 1.
in safety problems during their professional life. We
don’t attempt to educate a graduate who will blindly
fulfill all the traditional safety provisions and believe
that it will guarantee safety. We attempt to prepare a
graduate who will understand the purpose of the pro-
visions and who will be able to identify independently
the optimal safety provisions.
CONTENT OF THE SAFETY ENGINEERING COURSE
A course called Safety Engineering was created dur-
ing the second half of the nineties. The content of the
course has been improved gradually maintaining its
basic elements such as the identification of hazards
and scenarios, and the analysis of physical effects and
their consequences. The course follows basic steps
of the quantitative risk analysis as they are shown in
Figure 1.
Summary of the Safety Engineering course is repro-
duced in Table 1. The table shows that accident analy-
sis and two basic notions—a system and a hazard—
represent starting points of the course. Tools for the
identification of hazards and a concept of incident sce-
nario introduce students into the identification of fail-
ure cases. After an introduction into both the estima-
tion of frequency of human errors and the estimation
of incident scenario frequencies, special attention is
devoted to the consequence analysis. Students learn
to estimate potential consequences of various incident
scenarios in the hazards that are characteristic for the
chemical industry. The last two lessons of the course
attempt to join the preceding topics into an integrated
theoretical concept and to provide the students with
general knowledge on how safety is managed and
supported by legislation in industrial practice. We are
trying to stimulate students’ activity during the course.
After the introductory lessons they have to confront
their understanding with test questions. After the con-
sequence analysis lessons one lesson is devoted to a
students’ colloquium in which each of the students
has to present to their colleagues an article from the
Process Safety Progress journal (e.g. 12 articles from
the Volume 12 were presented this year). Examination
is based on students’ projects. Each project reflects an
analysis of a specific industrial accident.
196 September 2007 Published on behalf of the AIChE
Creating the course, we believed that this content
would supply the students with theoretical concepts
that would orientate them in safety problems during
their professional life. We hoped that the course
would represent the best starting point to a compre-
hensive process safety education.
EXPERIENCE WITH THE SAFETY ENGINEERING COURSE
The Safety Engineering course constitutes a part of
selected masters’ study programs, mostly as one of the
mandatory courses. It is considered to be useful for
students in the following programs: chemical engi-
neering, explosive technology, organic chemistry, and
environment protection. Usually it is attended by stu-
dents in the fourth year of study. The course hap-
pened to obtain a firm position in the above men-
tioned curricula. During the initial years of teaching
we collected new observations and confronted them
with our former expectations.
1. We are not able to guarantee that each of the grad-
uates who have attended our course is ready to an-
alyze her/his future process and identify independ-
ently the optimal safety provisions. The course is
not detailed enough to provide attendees with more
than an orientation in these tasks especially for com-
plex processes. But hopefully the graduates are able
to take part in relevant analyses and understand
their results.
2. The course does not represent a starting point for
safety education. Our students are introduced to
safety from our faculty long before the Safety Engi-
neering course. Each of them has had to pass through
various kinds of laboratory courses. Each of the labo-
ratories is commenced by safety training. Typically
the training represents an example of traditional
safety teaching. So we have to keep in mind that our
students start the Safety Engineering course with a
feeling that they know how safety practice looks.
The first observation does not represent an essential
problem. We do not suppose that each of the Safety
Engineering students will have to make a risk analysis.
Also we know that if they have to do it, some exten-
sion of their knowledge will be necessary. But often
DOI 10.1002/prs Process Safety Progress (Vol.26, No.3)
Table 1. Content of the safety engineering course.

Lesson 1 Introductory accident example. Frequency of accidents. Accident analysis. System with hazards.
Safety and inherently safer design.
Lesson 2 Hazards. Realization of hazards. Causations, initiations, failures. Incident scenarios and hazards.
Human factor. Frequency of human errors.
Lesson 3 Hazard identification. HAZOP and FMEA techniques. Rapid ranking of hazards.
Lesson 4 Analysis of incident scenarios. Event Tree technique. System analysis. Fault Tree Analysis.
Estimation of incident scenario frequency.
Lesson 5 Test of knowledge. Specification of examination project. Introduction terms of consequence
analysis.
Lesson 6 Transmission paths and attenuation. General principles. The atmosphere, water and the ground
as transmission paths. Barriers.
Lesson 7 Liquid and dust releases. Releases of liquefied vapors. BLEVE scenario. Releases of pressurized
and liquefied gases.
Lesson 8 Thermal energy impact. Mechanisms of thermal energy transfer. Releases of hot liquids or gases.
Flames on burning pools. Fireballs.
Lesson 9 Deflagration and detonation. General principles. Chemical energy releases, unconfined and
confined deflagrations.
Lesson 10 Harm to receptors. Correspondence between dose and harm. Harm to people, equipment,
buildings and the environment from acute emissions.
Lesson 11 Students’ colloquium – students present contents of selected articles from Process Safety
Progress journal.
Lesson 12 Chemical reactors. Chemical energy impact. General principles. Reaction runaways.
Adiabatic temperature rise. Evaluation of reaction hazards.
Lesson 13 Concepts and terminology of risk analysis. Procedures of risk analysis. Illustration
examples. The strategic approach to hazard reduction.
Lesson 14 The acceptability of risks. Control of process hazards. Management role in risk prevention.
Safety management systems. The role of the law.

The safety engineering course attempts to cover all topics of the textbook [5] and introduces a set of topics that
are similar to those included in the well-known book [2].

we feel that the teaching would be more effective
if the students collected a certain sum of empirical
knowledge before the beginning of the course. Realis-
tic knowledge of the industrial environment and dan-
gers met here make understanding of the starting gen-
eral notions (hazard, incident scenario) easier and sat-
isfactory. Obviously, a certain introduction of the topic
would be helpful.
The second observation shows that the students of-
ten enter our course with prejudices regarding safety,
e.g., they think that there is nothing like ‘‘general laws
of safety’’ and that safety is something that is included
in a process in a relatively late phase of its existence,
after its invention and design. Or they tend to think
that the general purpose of operational procedures is
to protect management, not employees. There is also
a danger that the students start to think that the labora-
tory safety training represents an industrial practice,
and our safety teaching represents an academic theory,
and that there is no connection between the two fields.
Negative attitudes lead to a loss of motivation for safety
and therefore the second observation represents the
more essential problem.
The second observation draws our attention to the
fact that the students, and definitely not only the stu-
dents of our course, often know too little about the
principles of safety management and about safety legis-
lation. It is sad because many graduates may leave for
industrial practice without satisfactory attitudes to
safety and motivation for safety. They may even leave
our Safety Engineering course, since our teaching, con-
centrated more on physical and mathematical concepts
than on reasons for their construction, does not combat
the negative safety prejudices satisfactorily. That is why
we started to think that larger exposure of students to
the principles of safety management and safety legisla-
tion is necessary and that bigger numbers of students
should be introduced into the way how safety is man-
aged and regulated by legislation. We feel that the
teaching would be more effective if it was based on a
certain sum of empirical knowledge. Hopefully, suita-
ble examples from the industrial environment could
help to prevent the ill attitudes and support under-
standing of the importance of process safety.
So after a few years of experience with the Safety
Engineering course we believed that our course was
up-to-date and correct, however, we felt it was isolated
from management practice and from legislation. We
understood that it should have been preceded with
some kind of introduction providing more empirical
and managerial insights to bigger numbers of students.
OPPORTUNITY FOR A CHANGE
In 2005 we were invited to prepare a new process
safety course for the students of bachelors’ study pro-
grams. It created a welcome opportunity to consider

Process Safety Progress (Vol.26, No.3) Published on behalf of the AIChE DOI 10.1002/prs September 2007 197
again the best possible starting point for the compre-
hensive safety education. We began to think about a
new introductory process safety course.
Students of the chemical technology faculty are ex-
pected to become experts and managers in the chemi-
cal and related industries. We know that most will be
responsible for safety at their workplaces. The assur-
ance of safety will be their everyday duty. A process
safety course should prepare them to be able to fulfill
the expected duty. Hence, the main objective of safety
course is to teach students what procedures, techni-
ques, and methods are used in the contemporary
process industry to assure safety.
As it is mentioned above, two additional important
circumstances should be respected:
Students do not represent ‘‘virgin land’’ regarding
safety. They may have their ideas about safety and
prejudices against it. The introductory course should
reveal the negative attitudes and oppose them.
Most of the students have little industrial experi-
ence especially at the bachelors’ study programs.
The introductory course should find a way to over-
come this difficulty. If the course is successful, it
may not only remove an important obstacle for
safety education but it may also help students to de-
velop more realistic knowledge about their possible
future workplaces.
So especially the introductory safety course should
fulfill two formative objectives:
1. Help the students to form a sound positive attitude
for safety assurance.
2. Show the students the industrial environment in
which safety is to be assured.
NEW VISION
Similarly to other engineering skills, the process
safety may be taught gradually in one to three levels
(bachelor, master, specialized and/or doctor study).
Our existing Safety Engineering course represents the
second level of teaching. Skills of our students should
be gradually deepened and broadened on the consec-
utive levels of the process safety teaching. These
courses should provide comprehensive process safety
education. However, students should not be expected
to pass through all levels of the teaching. Figure 2
illustrates the situation that is supposed to occur for
two levels of teaching. A relatively big number of stu-
dents (a+b) will pass the first level course. A majority
of them (a) will not continue. A lower number (b+c)
will pass the second level course. A certain number of
students (c) would not be prepared for the second
level course.
OBJECTIVES OF THE INDIVIDUAL LEVELS OF PROCESS
SAFETY TEACHING
As mentioned in the first section, we do not think
that students finishing the first level course have to be
able to identify the optimal safety provisions. How-
ever, they definitely have to be able to understand the
purpose and sense of provisions that are in place in
their future work environment. In any enterprise at
any industrial activity they will meet a set of safety
198 September 2007 Published on behalf of the AIChE
Figure 2. How our students may pass through the
process safety courses.
provisions that can be named ‘‘local safety manage-
ment system.’’ They will participate in fulfilling the
provisions of the safety management system. Our
graduates are expected not only to fulfill certain re-
quirements, but also to understand them, and improve
them. Understanding the purpose and sense of safety
provisions is necessary for the effective support of
provisions and for critical thinking about them.
The first level safety course should introduce stu-
dents into general rules of how the safety manage-
ment systems should be constituted, what they should
contain, and why. Students should understand inten-
tions and interactions of possible provisions constitu-
ting the safety management systems. Together with a
general overview of possible types of hazards it will
provide them with the ability to understand the sense
of the individual provisions of their local safety man-
agement system and the system itself. Hence, the first
level course objective is to
• Understand the purpose and structure of the
safety management systems.
The first level course is based on the idea that even
a worker who understands safety only qualitatively,
and is not able to quantify it, may contribute positively
to safety assurance if he acts in accordance with the
sense of safety management systems. The second level
course is based on the fact that the purposeful
improvement of the local safety management system
needs ability to quantify the contributions of various
provisions to safety. Risk analysis represents a theory
that enables systematic identification, selection and
quantification of possible safety provisions. The risk
analysis is introduced in the second level course as a
tool that enables the most effective exploitation of the
limited sources we have at disposal for our local safety
management system. Our graduates should be pre-
pared to take part in the improvement of safety man-
agement system effectiveness via the application of
risk analysis methodology. Hence the second level
course objective is to:
• Understand the principles of risk analysis and
evaluation and the application of risk analysis
methodology for the improvement of safety man-
agement system effectiveness.
As we have mentioned already, the third level courses
are understood to constitute a part of a specialized
DOI 10.1002/prs Process Safety Progress (Vol.26, No.3)
and/or doctoral studies that should result in the ability
of graduates to identify independently the optimal
safety provisions. The third level course objective is to:
• Understand the methods of risk analysis and evalu-
ation and their application to improve the safety
management system effectiveness. Be able to adopt,
apply, control, and develop them.
STARTING POINT OF THE FIRST LEVEL COURSE
The safety management systems were identified in
a previous section to represent a base for the compre-
hensive process safety education. We suppose that
understanding the purpose and structure of safety
management systems will help every student who
intends to enter industrial practice and that it will be
useful not only for the students finishing university
studies at bachelors’ level but also for those who will
continue studying in higher grades.
However, it does not mean that the most suitable
starting point of the first level course is the definition
of the safety management system. If it were so, then it
would be possible to quote proper formal definition
of the safety management system (see Figure 3), ex-
plain the individual items of the definition, mention a
few examples and that would be all. Such an explana-
tion could not take more than a few hours. It might be
suitable for qualified and experienced persons, who
operate inside a specific safety management system,
know its components, and understand their purpose.
In this case they would put their existing knowledge
in a proper frame.
But such an explanation would not probably help
students who have limited experience with the envi-
ronment of chemical industry and with a specific
safety management system. The real meaning of the
definition would stay unclear. Students would not be
convinced that the safety management system repre-
sents a useful concept and tool. And the two formative
objectives of the introductory safety course (form the
sound attitude and show the real environment) would
stay unfulfilled.
We decided to proceed in the opposite direction.
The individual components of the safety management
systems are introduced to students by means of vari-
ous specific examples in which the terminology from
Figure 3 is not used. The introduction of the terminol-
ogy is the final point of the explanation. The teaching
introduces a collection of specific details providing an
illustrative base for the general definition of safety
management systems. Simultaneously it opposes safety
prejudices and makes students familiar with the in-
dustrial environment. Hopefully, such teaching is able
to prepare students’ perception for the fulfillment of
both the first level course objective, and the formative
objectives.
Any local safety management system represents a
system of provisions aimed to prevent accidents in the
local hazards and mitigate their consequences. The
system is based on understanding properties and be-
havior of the specific local hazards. Therefore, we
decided that the lessons would commence with the
identification of various types of hazards, with the
Process Safety Progress (Vol.26, No.3) Published on behalf of the AIChE
Figure 3. The components of safety management
system according to Ref. 1.
demonstration of possible accidents in the hazards,
and possible ways of accident prevention and miti-
gation. If the range of possible hazard types is cov-
ered sufficiently in the lessons, the collected illustra-
tive material will serve as a proper base for the final
generalization.
A large number of detail descriptions of real acci-
dents are accessible in various printed and electronic
sources. Suitable selection of the accident examples
may help demonstrate properties of any selected haz-
ard type. The selected examples make the description
of preventive and mitigative possibilities easier. Exam-
ples also provide arguments opposing the safety prej-
udices and introducing students into the real industrial
environment. Last but not least, the teaching that is
based on the descriptions of real accidents is usually
considered to be attractive.
CONCEPTION OF THE FIRST LEVEL COURSE
The comprehensive process safety education begins
from the analyses of real accidents in selected hazard
types. We suppose that if the motivation of students for
safety is to be based soundly, then enough time has to
be devoted to what famous Trevor Kletz calls ‘‘learning
from accidents’’ [3]. Creation of the course starts from
the selection of a set of accident examples illustrating
behavior of important hazard types and importance of
relevant safety provisions.
Since the objective of the introductory course is of
a qualitative nature it is possible to exclude mathemat-
ical tools, complicated calculations and difficult defini-
tions. Correct and exact terminology is used, but it is
not explained in detail. Such an approach creates suf-
ficient space for fulfillment of formative objectives.
The explanations of physical and mathematical mod-
els and detail definitions of terminology are included
in the higher level courses.
CONTENT OF THE FIRST LEVEL COURSE
A set of accident descriptions are used in teaching.
The set is supposed to illustrate answers to following
four questions:
1. What hazard types are to be considered dangerous?
2. What behavior of hazards may be forecasted?
DOI 10.1002/prs September 2007 199
Table 2. Content of the introduction to safety engineering course.

Lesson 1 Introduction about purpose of procedures. Accident in hydroxylamine plant.

Application of procedures. Importance of deviations.
Lesson 2 Ship canal accident. Properties of flammable liquids. Explosions in flammable liquid tanks.
Explosive atmosphere.
Lesson 3 Accidents with toluene. Manipulation with flammable liquids. Explosions of flammable
liquid vapors. Vapor cloud dispersion.
Lesson 4 Hot work permit. Accidents caused by modification. Behavior of liquefied gases. Accidents with
LPG and LNG. Domino effect and tank protection.
Lesson 5 Protection against pressure. Explosion of methane. Properties of flammable gases. Explosions
of hydrogen.
Lesson 6 Accidents with ammonia. Chemical substances law, safety data sheets. Toxic clouds. Control
of integrity. Chlorine release. Defence in depth.
Lesson 7 Transport of dangerous substances. Release of hydrochloride acid. Investigation of release.
Test of knowledge.
Lesson 8 Visit of a risk analyst from an insurance company. Presentation of experience. Discussion.
Lesson 9 Characteristic fires. Fire load. Fire risk. Fire prevention. Means for fire detection and suppression.
Fire legislation.
Lesson 10 Explosions of condensed explosives. Accidents with fertilizers. Dust explosions. Protection
against explosion. Mitigation of explosions.
Lesson 11 Runaway reactions. Thermal explosions. Environmental impact assessment. Major accidents
prevention law.
Lesson 12 Hazards. Accidents with oxidizers. Accidents with inert substances, asphyxiants. Explosion
of tank with CO2. Legislative protection of workers.
Lesson 13 Two accidents in waterworks. Human factor. Safety culture. Integrated pollution prevention law.
Safety management system.
Lesson 14 Industrial accidents that changed the world. Descriptions. Analyses. Seveso, Flixborough,
Bhopal, Chernobyl.

The introduction to safety engineering course introduces a set of topics that are similar to those included in the
book [4].

3. How to prevent or mitigate realizations of danger?
4. What legislation is to be followed?
The answer to the first question is required to be rela-
tively detailed. The introductory safety course represents
an opportunity for introduction into properties and
behavior of a satisfactorily wide range of hazard types.
The meaning of the term ‘‘satisfactorily’’ may be ex-
plained, for instance, by the requirement that the repre-
sentatives of all hazard types that are included in legisla-
tion on dangerous chemical substances, major accident
prevention and fire prevention should be introduced to
students. In addition, reaction runaways and examples
of nonchemical hazards should be covered. This ap-
proach provides the following list of hazard types: flam-
mable liquids and their vapors, flammable gases, lique-
fied flammable gases, toxic gases, toxic liquids, solid
flammable substances, condensed explosives, flamma-
ble dusts, exothermic reactions, oxidizing substances,
asphyxiants, and potential and pressure energy.
The answers to questions 2–4 need not be so
detailed. Students are supposed to absorb only a gen-
eral understanding of relevant topics.
We decided to proceed through the above selection
of hazard types and answer gradually the questions 2–
4 for each of the hazard types. Accident examples
were selected to illustrate the answers. The summary
of the Introduction to Safety Engineering course is
reproduced in Table 2. The table shows that teaching
follows the presented scheme in 12 of 14 lessons. Two
lessons are different. The eighth lesson is devoted to a
presentation of risk analysis experience by an expert
from an industrial or insurance company. The last les-
son describes four accidents with extreme influence
on human attitudes and legislation.
The term safety management system is introduced
in the 13th lesson. The system is presented as a uni-
versal concept applicable to any industrial activity.
The fourteenth lesson may be understood as a report
about the origin of individual components of the
safety management system and about the origin of
two complex managerial concepts: safety management
system and safety culture.
Relatively big number of case histories was ex-
ploited in the lessons. Alphabetical listing of major
case history references is included in the first column
of following Table 3. The second column shows which
lessons refer to the individual sources.
CONCLUSIONS
The term safety management system names a gen-
eral managerial concept enabling an integral approach
to safety assurance. The list of components of the safety
management system represents a list of knowledge and
activities that are considered to be necessary conditions
for the integrated approach to safety assurance of

200 September 2007 Published on behalf of the AIChE DOI 10.1002/prs Process Safety Progress (Vol.26, No.3)
Table 3. Major case history references for the introduction to safety engineering course.

Baker Q. A., Ketchum D. A., and Turnbull K. H., Storage Tank Explosion Investigation,
Process Safety Progress, 23(1), March 2004, 16–20. Lesson 2
Craig Schroll R., Industrial Fire Protection Handbook, CRC Press, Boca Raton, 2002. Lesson 9
Clayton W. E. and Griffin M. L., Catastrophic Failure of a Liquid Carbon Dioxide Storage
Vessel, Process Safety Progress, 13(4), 202–209. Lesson 12
Dowell A. M. III. and Hendershot D. C., No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Case Studies
of Incidents and Potential Incidents Caused by Protective Systems, Process Safety Progress,
16(3), 132–139. Lesson 5
Frank W. L., Dust Explosion Prevention and the Critical Importance of House-Keeping,
Process Safety Progress, 23(3), Sep 2004, 175–184. Lesson 10
Gröbl Z., Piaček K., Požár skladu bavlny a umělých vláken, časopis 112, čı́slo 2/2005,
s. 7–8, (in Czech language). Lesson 9
Hall D. S. and Losee L. A., Carbon Disulfide Incidents During Viscose Rayon Processing,
Process Safety Progress, 16(4), 251–254. Lesson 4
Hendershot D. C. et al., Peroxide Drum Explosion and Fire, Process Safety Progress,
17(3), Fall 1998, 225–231. Lesson 11
Hong-Chun Wu, Explosion Accident Analysis of Diaminodiphenolether Process,
Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries, 17(5), September 2004, 373–376. Lesson 11
Horák J.,Technické, psychologické a sociologické přı́činy haváriı́, 11. kapitola v Organické
produkty ve výrobě a v životnı́m prostředı́, ÚOCHB ČSAV, 1989, (in Czech language). Lesson 14
Kirchsteiger C. (Editor), Risk Assessment and Management in the Context of the Seveso II
Directive, Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1998. Lesson 14
Kletz T. A., Learning from Accidents, Butterworth-Heinemann, 1994 Lesson 14
Lacoursiere J. P., An Explosion Caused by Mixing Incompatible Liquids, Process Safety Progress,
24(2), June 2005, p. 115–119. Lesson 11
Lees F. P., Loss Prevention in the Process Industries, 2nd edition, Lesson 6, 10,
Butterworth-Heinemann, 1996 11, 12, 14
Leveson N. G., A New Model for Analyzing Accidents, Proceedings of the JRC/ESReDA
Seminar on Safety Investigation of Accidents, Petten, Netherland, 12–13 May 2003. Lesson 13
Long L. A., The Explosion at Concept Sciences: Hazards of Hydroxylamine,
Process Safety Progress, 23(2), June 2004, 114–120. Lesson 1
Lukš O., Zásah hasičů při úniku chlóru, 150 hořı́, prosinec 2000, s.10–12, (in Czech language). Lesson 6
Morrison D. R. et al., Common Causes and Corrections for Explosions and Fires in Improperly
Inerted Vessels, Process Safety Progress, 21(2), 142–150. Lesson 3
Lesson 2, 3,
Marshall V. and Ruhemann S., Fundamentals of Process Safety, IChemE, Rugby, 2001. 6, 10–13
Ogle R. A. and Carpenter A. R., Lessons Learned from Fires, Flash Fires, and Explosions
Involving Hot Work, Process Safety Progress, 20(2), 75–81. Lesson 4
Ogle R. A. and Morrison D. T., Investigation of an Acid Spill Caused by the Failure of an
Air-Operated Diaphragm Pump, Process Safety Progress, 20(1), 41–49. Lesson 7
Pande J. O. and Tonheim J., Ammonia Plant NII: Explosion of Hydrogen in a Pipeline
for CO2, Process Safety Progress, 20(1), 37–40. Lesson 5
Planas-Cuchi E. et al., Explosion of a road tanker containing liquefied natural gas,
Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 17(2004), 315–321. Lesson 4
Pratt T. H., Static Electricity in Pneumatic Transport Systems: Three Case Histories, Process
Safety Progress, 13(3), July 1994, 109–113. Lesson 10
Pratt T. H. and Atherton J. G., Electrostatic Ignitions in Everyday Chemical Operations:
Three Case Histories, Process Safety Progress, 18(4), 241–246. Lessons 3, 10
Riezel Y., Explosion and Fire in a Gas-Oil Fixed Roof Storage Tank: Case Study and
Lessons Learned, Process Safety Progress, 21(1), 67–73. Lesson 5
Sutherland L. E. and Holman M., Pressure Relief Valve Piping Failures and Fire:
Ammonia Synthesis Loop, Process Safety Progress, 18(2), 107–112. Lesson 6
Ta-Cheng Ho and Yih-Shing Duh, Case Studies of Incidents in Runaway Reactions
and Emergency Relief, Process Safety Progress, 17(4), Winter 1998, 259–262. Lesson 11
Verduijn W. D., Catastrophic Failure of an Ammonia/Air Mixer, Process Safety Progress,
15(2), 89–94. Lesson 6
Vrzal Jan, Ze suroviny zbyl jen popel, časopis 112, čı́slo 1/2004, s. 4–6, (in Czech language). Lesson 9
www.csb.gov Lesson 12

Process Safety Progress (Vol.26, No.3) Published on behalf of the AIChE DOI 10.1002/prs September 2007 201
industrial activities. The safety management system
thus represents both a theoretical concept and a practi-
cal tool.
Understanding of this concept is supposed to be
both a reasonable preparation for practical activities
and a suitable basis for continuing process safety edu-
cation. In accordance with the book [3], analyses of
real accidents in selected hazard types (‘‘learning from
accidents’’) are supposed to lead students to the un-
derstanding of the concept.
The Introduction to Safety Engineering course was
based on these ideas. The course is supposed to serve
as a useful preparation for those students who leave
the faculty from the bachelors’ level and as a reasona-
ble basis for those students who continue to study in
masters’ study programs. The course is considered to
202 September 2007 Published on behalf of the AIChE
present the best starting point to the comprehensive
process safety education.
LITERATURE CITED
1. C. Kirchsteiger, (Editor), Risk Assessment and
Management in the Context of the Seveso II Direc-
tive, Amsterdam, Elsevier, 1998.
2. D.A. Crowl and J.F. Louvar, Chemical Process Safety
Fundamentals with Applications, 2nd Edition, Pren-
tice Hall, NJ, 2002.
3. T. Kletz, Learning from Accidents, Butterworth-
Heinemann, Oxford, 1993.
4. R.L. Brauer, Safety and Health for Engineers, 2nd
Edition, Wiley, Hoboken, NJ, 2006.
5. V. Marshall and S. Ruhemann, Fundamentals of
Process Safety, IChemE, Rugby, 2002.
DOI 10.1002/prs Process Safety Progress (Vol.26, No.3)