Explosives Safety - An Oxymoron?

A history of the development of explosives, and related accidents, provides a background to the practical application of safety assessment techniques for projects involving explosives systems. The analysis techniques include ´fault tree´ and ´event tree´ analysis, which have been used qualitatively to help develop ´lines of defence´ arguments. These have been subsequently developed using a graphical technique termed ´bow tie´ analysis. The development of ´safety functional requirements´ and ´safety integrity levels´ is also described for equipment which will be used in explosives processing. Finally, the difficulty in determining the consequences of an insult to explosives is discussed, together with the implications for ´quantitative´ risk assessments. This paper aims to demystify the terms used above by demonstrating how they have been used in practical applications.