On April 24, 2012 at 2:40 PM in Room 5 at the 5th Aluminum International Congress held in at Expoalumino 2012/ Aluminium Brazil 2012 in Sao Paulo, Brasil the following paper will be presented. Here is a link to the conference.
“Safe Enough? Safety in the Cast house”
Alex W. Lowery1, Ernesto Bastos2
Wise Chem LLC, P.O. Box 97147, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 15229, USA
Pyrobras Comércio e Indústria Ltda., Rua José Ruscitto, Taboão da Serra, SP 06765-490 Brazil
Abstract
In industry, engineers design equipment to meet specific requirements. These requirements include but are not limited to cost, production capacity, and environmental regulation. If all these requirements are met but the equipment is not safe, then the design is considered a failure. This, however, is not applicable in the cast house.
History has shown it is impossible to eliminate the risk of a molten metal steam explosion in a cast house. It's understood in the aluminium industry that it is impossible to design a completely safe environment in a cast house, so the best alternative is to manage the risk.
Does this means designing for failure? The real question seems to be whether cast houses can operate with the understanding that they can never be fully safe and can they live with the inevitable failure. Are they "safe enough?"
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