Inherently Safer Design (ISD) solutions in confined spaces: Experts' practical feedback in Quebec, Canada

Type de document

Études primaires

Année de publication

2022

Langue

Anglais

Titre de la revue

Process Safety and Environmental Protection

Première page

375

Dernière page

389

Résumé

This paper aims to present solutions based on inherently safer design (ISD) principles to reduce the risks related to interventions in confined spaces and discuss their general applicability in a design situation or installations retrofit by exploring the client-designer relationship. A literature review on ISD solutions for confined spaces was followed by semi-structured interviews with 15 experts on confined space risk management in Quebec, Canada. The solutions based on the literature were confronted with experts' knowledge on the real-life conditions in confined space interventions. Our findings suggest that considering the entire confined space's life cycle in design is still very marginal (e.g., questioning the necessity to enter). As designers tend to replicate non intrinsically safe designs (e.g., inadequate entrances dimensions), end-users will then require retrofitting the structures over time, which usually costs more in the long term than implementing ISD solutions earlier. The notion of declassification of the confined space to eliminate confined spaces can give a false sense of safety. Its contribution to accident prevention depends on how end-users reduce inherent or task-induced risks as low as reasonably practicable. This paper categorized declassification into three types: total elimination, hazard-oriented declassification, and organizational declassification. Since the implementation guidelines of these risk reduction strategies are absent in the literature, this paper provides a risk reduction model that shows how end-users can identify application phases, declassify a confined space, and manage residual risks at the design phase in real-life environments.

Mots-clés

Travail en espace clos, Work in confined spaces, Gestion du risque, Risk management, Évaluation du risque, Hazard evaluation, Enquête par entrevue, Interview survey, Québec

Numéro de projet IRSST

2016-0043

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