Articles of interest

Steve Greeson, HSB Professional Loss Control

Floods cause significant damage across the United State each year. There are ways to reduce or even eliminate the damage due to flooding. One of the first steps is to determine your flood zone. Then there are actions to take to minimize your exposure to a flood.

Steve Greeson, HSB Professional Loss Control

The US East Coast and Gulf Coast are subject to hurricane exposures. There are actions that business and home owners can take to prepare for a possible hurricane and minimize its effect on their property.

Steve Greeson, HSB Professional Loss Control

A recent fire at a student housing building provides some lessons learned to help prevent similar events in the future. The article looks at the possible fire sources and notes deficiencies that were present in the building, which if had been corrected, could have reduced the impact of the fire.

Don Drewry, HSB Professional Loss Control

Heat Treating is a process that involves heating and cooling a solid metal or alloy in a controlled manner in order to change the physical properties of the material being heated or cooled. There are basically three steps in heat treating: heating a metal or alloy part to a controlled temperature; holding (soaking) the temperature for a defined length of time; then cooling the part rapidly or slowly at a controlled rate. This process results is changing the material’s microstructure, which changes the material’s mechanical properties such as strength, ductility, toughness, and wear resistance.

Steve Greeson, HSB Professional Loss Control

High Intensity Discharge (HID) lamps describe a family of lamps of which Metal Halide lamps are but one member. It is important to be able to distinguish between the other HID lamps as they do not have the requirements of safe operation as Metal Halide lamps. Once a lamp has been identified as a Metal Halide, one must then identify the type or class of Metal Halide of which there are three; Type O, S, and E. It is at that point that you can begin the process of determining the level of protection provided or needed.

Ed Bates, HSB Professional Loss Control

Mine operators must comply with numerous requirements for inspection, testing, and maintenance of fire suppression and detection systems. Standards for inspection and testing go beyond those which are prescribed in the Code of Federal Regulations for mines. This article provides analysis of the fire protection inspection, testing, and maintenance requirements of 30 CFR and explains how the evolving fire protection standards of the National Fire Protection Association can be applied for mining operations. This article originally appeared in the January 2006 edition of Coal Age magazine.

Don Drewry and Dominique Dieken, P.E., Professional Loss Control

Dominique Dieken, P.E., Professional Loss Control

When properly designed, installed and maintained, fire sprinkler systems are an effective means of protecting people, equipment and property in industrial and commercial facilities. But mistaken notions about sprinklers and other fire suppression equipment keep many businesses from installing necessary equipment.

L. Paul Herman, P.E., Professional Loss Control

This paper provides a planning tool to assist facility management in developing a comprehensive program of I,T & PM for fire protection systems and equipment.

Dominique Dieken, P.E., Professional Loss Control

Fire protection at a commercial or industrial facility consists of much more than a few sprinkler heads. A network of engineered systems must all function together to be effective. Unlike most engineered systems, however, installed fire protection systems cannot be tested under actual conditions.

Dominique Dieken, P.E., Professional Loss Control

Too often, fire suppression systems fail to operate properly during fires in electric generating plants. In about one-third of these cases, the cause is inadequate inspection, testing and maintenance.

Thomas F. Barry, P.E., and Teresa Stone, Professional Loss Control

Corporate restructuring and tight maintenance budgets have fire safety specialists taking a fresh look at ways to control fire and explosion hazards. One result has been a wider interest in fire protection methods developed in highly hazardous industries such as chemical processing and nuclear power generation. This risk-informed, performance-based approach presents a more realistic prediction of potential fire and explosion hazards for a given system or process, or for an entire operation.

Dominique Dieken, P.E., Professional Loss Control

Because of the increasingly competitive nature of the electric power generation market, reduced plant staffing and stricter OSHA requirements for employee fire fighting capabilities, builders of new generating stations need to place increased emphasis on fixed fire protection systems.

Dominique Dieken, P.E., Professional Loss Control

Misconceptions about fires often come from what we have seen on television or in movies. Many widely held beliefs about fire protection are untrue. Properly installed and maintained systems in all areas of a plant can drastically reduce damage potential.

Dominique Dieken, P.E., Professional Loss Control

While a handful of prominent insurers still believe that loss control engineering is a sound investment, the industry's involvement in fire protection design and specifications has been decreasing.

Thomas F. Barry, P.E., Professional Loss Control

Risk-Informed, Performance Based fire protection programs assist management decision makers by providing a structured, consistent method to quantify risk, evaluate risk reduction alternatives, and perform cost-benefit analysis. These methods have been applied by HSB PLC at various types of facilities.

Mr. Barry is the author of a book entitled, Risk-Informed Performance-Based Industrial Fire Protection: An Alternative to Prescriptive Codes, published in 2002.

Jay J. Jablonski, Vice President, Professional Loss Control

Presented at the Second International Conference on Loss Prevention in the Oil, Chemical and Process Industries, Singapore.

Gas detection systems provide warning to plant personnel of a release of a combustible gas so that actions, automatic and/or manual, can be taken to control the release before any significant damage can occur. These actions can include process system shutdowns and suppression or mitigation systems actuation. A well designed gas detection system will increase the level of plant safety.