Process Safety: When Engineering Meets Safety
Thursday, 11 June 2020 • 12–1 p.m.
Our current socially desirable industrial activities contribute to our economic growth, the human well-being, and the building of a sustainable future. Yet these activities are inherently associated with the risk of occurrence of major hazard events (fires, explosions and toxic releases) that if not properly controlled can lead to severe consequences (injuries, fatalities, economic and environmental losses). How to prevent major hazard events and mitigate them? How to ensure the safety of workers and public while running our oil and gas and chemical plants? The answer is: Process Safety Engineering. This presentation will introduce to the public about the discipline of Process Safety. It will show how industry currently uses engineering to identify, assess and control the risks of major hazard. The speaker will present some historical case studies that defined the discipline and will present the efforts done by industry and academia in Qatar to assess and improve our knowledge of process safety and train a future generation of engineer committed to process safety.
Dr. Luc N. Véchot
Dr. Luc N. Véchot is an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University at Qatar (TAMUQ) and the Managing Director of the Qatar branch of the Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center (MKOPSC). Dr Véchot holds a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Saint-Étienne (France) in 2006. He started his career in 2007 at the Health & Safety Laboratory (HSL) in Buxton, UK, where he served as a process safety engineer. In 2010, he joined TAMUQ as an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering where he developed the process safety research, outreach and teaching activities. In 2013, he led the establishment of a satellite of the MKOPSC at TAMUQ. Under his leadership as Managing Director, with the support of the local Oil and Gas and Petrochemical industry, the satellite center has become a unique process safety research institution supporting the industry on major process safety issues and training the new generation of process safety engineer of Qatar.