FUNCTIONARY-I

Introduction

Functional safety is a critical aspect of the chemical industry that aims to reduce risks and prevent incidents in potentially dangerous industrial processes. It involves implementing measures to ensure that systems, equipment, and processes function correctly and safely, especially in response to various inputs or potential failures. Risk analysis, economic factors and cybersecurity are key concepts for functional safety. Balancing process safety, functional safety and cybersecurity is a value creator in our industry.

About

Functional safety - a cornerstone in process safety of chemical processes - is mostly approached as a purely risk-based challenge. FUNCTIONARY-I aims to shift the train of thought by developing a new methodology based on a performance and technology-based approach. This new method aims to improve the safety of production units at lower cost but without any compromise on the overall process safety, which is essential for the Flemish chemical industry to remain competitive.

Goal

FUNCTIONARY-I aims to:

1. increase the understanding of critical parameters and how they interact.
2. avoid that safety systems conflict with current standards and guidelines on cybersecurity.
3. increase knowledge and transparency of cost drivers throughout the safety lifecycle.

FUNCTIONARY-I aims to establish a set of guiding principles for process and functional safety in the chemical process industry following a novel, enriched, science-based approach. These guiding principles should lead to advanced and lean functional safety measures and designs. The set of guiding principles will be verified through generic industrial use cases, for which field data will be made available through the essenscia Process Safety Academy (EPSA) and its industrial members.

Consortium

FUNCTIONARY-I is coordinated by Ghent University (MaTCh-LCT, Prof. Paul Van Steenberge) in partnership with KU Leuven (ESAT-electa, prof. Geert Deconinck), and the University of Antwerp (ENM-EnvEcon, Prof. Philippe Nimmegeers). 

Photo (from-left-to-right): John Okpanachi (KU Leuven), Geert Deconinck (KU Leuven), Philippe Nimmegeers (UAntwerpen), Paul Van Steenberge (UGent), Mehran Farzadmehr (UAntwerpen)