Overview

Quentin Baker
John Murphy

October 1999

Inherently safer design concepts can be applied to plant layout and facility siting. Passive and inherently safer plant layout design practices can lessen the adverse effects of accidental releases of toxic and flammable materials and runaway reactions, as well as minimize knock-on effects. The consequences of explosion, fire and toxic release hazards to building occupants can be reduced through building siting and design. Certain locations around process units are inherently safer than others. Likewise, certain types of construction and design practices make some buildings inherently safer than others. This paper will discuss appropriate inherently safer practices and illustrate with examples.

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quentin baker, PE, CFEI, CFII

Quentin Baker, PE, CFEI, CFII

Mr. Baker is a member of BakerRisk’s Blast Effects Group. His work focuses on explosion and combustion phenomena. He has conducted numerous R&D projects, hazard analyses, and engineering studies involving airblast effects from a wide variety of explosion sources, blast loads, fragmentation effects, debris throw, blast damage, and personnel injury.

Injury prediction and risk analysis have also been the subject of Mr. Baker’s research; he has contributed to the development of a building occupant vulnerability model. He has also investigated explosions and fires including chemical processing facilities, upstream oil and gas, midstream/pipeline, grain storage and handling, rail, and ship.

Committees

National Fire Protection Association (NFPA): NFPA 921 Committee
Texas A&M University: Mechanical Engineering Industrial Advisory Council

Specialties

Incident Investigation

Papers

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john murphy

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