Older safety systems were a series of individual safety loops: a sensor connected to a logic solver, which activated a final control element. If a level sensor in a tank detected that the liquid was too deep, it sent a signal to its logic solver to close the inlet valve. There could be dozens or […]

During the platform fire in 1988, virtually nothing went right, which allows us to draw lessons from a long list of events leading to the hazard. In the aftermath of the huge fire on the Piper Alpha platform, July 6, 1988, it was clear that the fire started and escalated very quickly into a full-blown […]