Safety Engineering and Disaster Risk

Management

Chapter 4
Basic Safety Engineering: Hazard
Evaluation

Er. Umesh Sukamani

Khwopa Engineering College
 Introduction
The evaluation stage of the safety engineering
process has as its goal the prioritizing or ordering
of the list of potential system condition or
physical state hazards, or potential system
personnel of human factors compiled in Hazard
identification.
The mere presence of a potential hazard tells us
nothing about its potential danger. To know the
danger related to a particular hazard, one must
first examine associated risk factors.

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 RISK
 Risk can be measured as the product of three components:
(a) the probability that an injury or damage producing mishap
will occur during any one exposure to the hazard;
(b) the likely severity or degree of injury or damage that will
likely result should a mishap occur; and
(c) the estimated number of times a person or persons will
likely be exposed to the hazard over a specific period of
time. That is…
(1) H x R = D, and since
(2) R = P x S x E, then
(3) H (P x S x E) = D
where:H= Hazard R = Risk
D = Danger P = Probability
3 S = Severity E = Exposure 9/19/2018
 PROBABILITY
In the evaluation of mishap probability, consideration
should be given to historical incident data and reasonable
methods of prediction.

Use of this equation must take into account that an

accident event having a remote probability of occurrence
during any single exposure, or during any finite period of
exposure to a particular hazard, IS CERTAIN TO
OCCUR if exposure to that hazard is allowed to
be repeated over a longer period of time.

Therefore, a long term or large sample view should be

taken for proper evaluation.
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 SEVERITY
Determination of potential severity should center on the
most likely resulting injury or damage as well as the most
severe potential outcome.
Severity becomes the controlling factor when severe
injury or death is a likely possibility among the several
plausible outcomes.
Even when other risk factors indicate a low probability of
mishap over time, if severe injury or death may occur as
a result of mishap, the risk associated with such hazards
must be considered as being “unacceptable,” and strict
attention given to the control of such hazards and related
mishaps.
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 EXPOSURE

Exposure evaluation should consider the typical

life expectancy of the system containing a
particular hazard, the number of systems in use,
and the number of individuals who will be
exposed to these systems over time.

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 Hazard evaluation
Hazard evaluation (HE) can be defined as the
systematic identification and analysis of hazards
associated with a given product, machine, or
process.
It involves identifying the hazards and the failure
modes that allow these hazards to cause injury, in
addition to determining the exposure of the
hazards and the severity of the hazard
consequences.

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 Hazard evaluation
The deliverables resulting from Hazard
Evaluation are a definition of the system, a list of
hazards, and a list of failure modes with the
associated hazard, exposure, and consequences.

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 Hazard evaluation
Step 1 - Establish boundaries
The first step in hazard evaluation is to set the
boundaries of the study.
It is important to make sure that the boundaries
are clearly set and stated for future reference.
Once the boundaries are set, everything within
them (the "system") should be studied.
Subdividing a large process or machine into
pieces can make HE easier.
In any event, it is important to make sure that all
interfaces within and at the boundaries of the HE
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system are covered. 9/19/2018
 Hazard evaluation
Step 1 - Establish boundaries
Additionally, all the functions associated with a
given machine or system under study must be
covered.
Normal production operation, maintenance, setup,
cleaning, jam clearing, die-setting, part
loading/unloading, tool changing, and so forth
must all be studied.
All modes of a given machine must also be
examined. Modes might include such things as
normal, forward, reverse, backwash, self-clean,
defrost, automatic, inch, and manual.
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 Hazard evaluation
Step 2 - Identify hazards
 Once the boundaries are defined, the next step is
identifying all the hazards present within the study
boundaries.
 A hazard can be defined as a potential for doing harm.
There are many types of hazards found in a typical
manufacturing environment.
 One class of hazard is mechanical. These include shear
points, pinch points, nip points, and snag hazards.
 A pervasive hazard is gravity. It causes objects and people
to fall if not supported.
 Electrical hazards include not only exposure to voltage
sources, but also overheated connections due to contact
resistance and short circuits that can cause unintended
11 actuation of machine parts or fires. 9/19/2018
 Hazard evaluation
Step 2 - Identify hazards
 Chemical hazards include toxics that have both acute effects such
as nausea and dizziness and chronic effects, such as cancer and
damage to the central nervous system. Injury or illness from toxic
exposure can result from both short-term or long-term exposure.
Such exposure can be from contact, inhalation, or ingestion.
Chemical hazards can also involve flammable, explosive, or
reactive compounds.
 Walking/working surfaces can also present hazards such as slip and
fall, tripping, and other gravity hazards, such as falling through a
hole, or objects falling from one surface to another. There are also
ergonomic hazards, such as lifting too much weight, lifting
incorrectly, and repetitive motion injuries. Compressed gases,
including compressed air, are another common hazard.
 As an example of identifying hazards, a press has an obvious pinch
point hazard. A conveyor has nip point hazards. A machine
employing a geared power train has nip point hazards. One way to
identify these hazards is to carefully examine the entire system,
including all boundaries established using a checklist. 9/19/2018
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 Hazard evaluation
Step 3 - Identify failure modes
The third step is to identify the failure modes that will
allow the hazards to cause injury.
Using the system hazard list, examine the system for
scenarios that could result in injury. A punch press has a
pinch point at the point of operation. However, if the
press has a fixed guard that provides complete protection,
then a failure of the guard is required to allow injury at
the point of operation. This might occur if the guard was
removed for maintenance, or if the guard became broken.
If the press has an interlocked guard, one failure mode
would be an interlock failure.

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 Hazard evaluation
Step 4 - Evaluate exposure
 Once the hazard and failure modes are identified, the next step is to
evaluate the exposure. These are the people and property potentially
exposed to the hazard by a given failure mode. Often this is the machine
operator or maintenance man or a product user. However, a hazard at a
major chemical processing facility might involve a toxic release that
would affect thousands off site. Once the hazard and failure mode is
identified, determining the affected population and property is often
straightforward. If the failure mode is that a press operator places his
hand in a closing die due to a missing guard, the exposure is the press
operator.
 Evaluation of exposure can require more thought than is expected,
however, because the exposure sometimes only appears obvious.
Consider a setup man installing a die in a horizontal press. It would
appear that if he were to drop the die he is the exposure, along with some
property damage. But what if he has a helper? What if there are
bystanders and the falling die creates flying objects from loose tools?
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 Hazard evaluation
Step 5 - Identify consequences
The fifth step is to identify the consequences of the
failure mode.
Some failure modes have a range of potential
consequences. For instance, tire tread separation
might result in a mere flat tire, or rollover and
multiple deaths, depending on circumstances.
Use the worst consequence that is reasonably
possible. Note that in-running nip points can be
particularly dangerous. Typically, they only stop
pulling the body in when the driving mechanism is
shut off, or when the ingested body parts stall out the
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driving mechanism. 9/19/2018
 Acceptable vs. Unacceptable Risk
This step in the hazard evaluation process will
ultimately serve to divide the list of potential
hazards into a group of “acceptable” hazards and
a group of “unacceptable” hazards.

Acceptable hazards are those associated with

acceptable risk factors; unacceptable hazards are
those associated with unacceptable risk factors.

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 Acceptable vs. Unacceptable Risk
An “acceptable risk” can be thought of as a risk
that a group of rational, well-informed, ethical
individuals would deem acceptable to expose
themselves to in order to acquire the clear benefits
of such exposure.

An “unacceptable risk” can be thought of as a

risk that a group of rational, well-informed,
ethical individuals would deem unacceptable to
expose themselves to in order to acquire the
exposure benefits.
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 Acceptable vs. Unacceptable Risk
Hazards associated with an acceptable risk are
traditionally called “safe,” while hazards
associated with an unacceptable risk are
traditionally called “unsafe.”
Therefore, what is called “safe” does contain
elements of risk that are judged to be
“acceptable.”
Once again, the mere presence of a hazard does
not automatically mean that the hazard is
associated with any real danger. It must first be
measured as being unacceptable.
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 Acceptable vs. Unacceptable Risk
The result of this evaluation process will be the
compiling of a list of hazards (or risks and
dangers) that are considered unacceptable.

These unacceptable hazards (rendering the system

within which they exist “unreasonably
dangerous”) are then carried to the third stage of
the safety engineering process, called “hazard
control.”

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