The analysis:
In the context of the renewal of the CPI (Fire Prevention Certificate) at the plant of one of our major customers, a multinational hollow glass company, the need arose to review the explosion protection document in order to align it with the Fire Ministerial Decree of 3 August 2015, in particular with regard to Chapter V.2 “Areas at risk for explosive atmospheres”. The most complex aspect of the request was to satisfy what was reported in the decree regarding the “Evaluation of the extent of the foreseeable effects of an explosion” (V.2.2.5) and the “Quantification of the level of protection” (V .2.2.6)
The solutions
RZ Solution S.r.l. after having carefully studied what is expressed by the decree (although very generic in the requests) supported the customer by developing an innovative method in order to evaluate and quantify both the extent of the consequences of an explosion and the relative level of protection, considering the explosion of each classified area present within the plant.
For each classified area, the quantity of equivalent TNT was calculated (or the actual radiation intensity due to combustion) and subsequently, through Probit correlations, it was evaluated at which characteristic distances the analyzed event had a certain probability of occurring .
Following the calculations, a second evaluation was implemented with the aim of quantifying the level of protection associated with each classified area, giving immediate evidence of the result.
The results
The requests of the Fire Ministerial Decree of 3 August 2015 for the topic in question are currently very generic, therefore there is currently no guideline or path already marked out to be able to satisfy them. Our method therefore made it possible to satisfy what was required by the decree and to provide immediate quantitative and qualitative evidence of what was present in the plant, a fact which satisfied the Fire Brigade and allowed the plant to proceed with the process relating to the CPI.
