Consideration of chemical reactivity hazards in security vulnerability assessments of chemical facilities
Center for Chemical Process Safety 18th Annual International Conference - Managing Chemical Reactivity Hazards and High Energy Release Events
A considerable amount of effort over the past two years has been devoted to the development of Security Vulnerability Assessment (SVA) methodologies for evaluating chemical facilities against potential malevolent threats. The SVAs include Sandia's VAM-CF™ and the Center for Chemical Process Safety's (CCPS) SVA as well as others. There are differences in the level of rigor among the different SVA methodologies but generally these methodologies identify potential targets and determine a relative risk with respect to identified undesired events, threats and adversary scenarios. Chemical reactivity hazards are considered during the SVA process but in some cases to a lesser degree than other areas. This paper will discuss how a user can consider chemical reactivity and high-energy release hazards within the framework of an SVA approach for chemical site security. This would include such areas as the identification of targets/critical areas, consequence assessment, threat assessment and the evaluation of protection effectiveness and safety/mitigation features.