Conceptual and practical applications of ISD

As a proactive way to reduce safety risks through eliminating or lessening hazards, inherently safer design (ISD) concepts and principles have been applied widely in chemical process industries and made important contributions in process safety assurance over the past decades. To get insights into the current application status of ISD approaches in the chemical process industries, this chapter elaborates on the conceptual and practical applications of ISD in different aspects associated with process safety assurance. Firstly, the applications of ISD to hazard identification and process risk analysis are introduced before several typical approaches for integrating ISD principles in risk assessment, and process safety management are illustrated. Secondly, the practical applications of ISD to dust explosion prevention and mitigation are introduced. Thirdly, the applications of the ISD concepts in relation with the nuclear industry are briefly reviewed before the conclusion is given.