Refrigeration And Personal Safety

The book is divided into three sections. The first section deals with Basics of Refrigeration in general, Shipboard Applications of Refrigeration and general information about Refrigerants. The second section deals with commonly used Refrigerants including Fluorocarbon-based refrigerants, Carbon-di-oxide, ammonia and Pure Hydrocarbon-based refrigerants. The third section in particular discusses the various Safety hazards in Refrigeration. These include: 1. Asphyxiation Accidents due to leaking refrigerants and due to release of gases from refrigerated products: 2. Toxicity 3. Fire hazards Flammability Combustion/Decomposition ix 4. Frost Bite and Cold Burns 5. Overpressure: Rupture of tank or system. 6. Injuries from Flying Objects 7. Slip/Trip/Fall Injuries 8. Loss of Body Heat or Hypothermia 9. Cold Shock 10. Danger from Rotating Components 11. Electrocution 12. Lifting Heavy Machinery Components 13. Legionnaires Disease

I have discussed about 120 shipboard and shore-based incidents drawn from accident investigation reports from various sources. Some of the incidents are taken from non-refrigeration industries, as they are also applicable to refrigeration industry. The idea is to create and spread awareness among seafarers about the dangers lurking in refrigerated spaces and with refrigeration equipment. If the book is able to contribute even a small drop in the accident rate on board the ships, it would have served its purpose.

This book is an attempt to address the safety hazards present in Refrigeration and how to prevent accidents and injuries when working on Refrigeration equipment. When teaching about Cold Rooms on ships, one of my favourite questions to the students is which room is more unsafe – Vegetable room, where temperature is maintained at +5 degrees C or Fish Room, where temperature is maintained at –20 degrees C. Often, the instantaneous answer from the students is Fish Room as it is much colder than ambient and there could be danger of hypothermia, frostbite and so on. But, in reality, it is the Vegetable Room which is probably more dangerous, because of presence of gases liberated from the vegetables and fruits. Persons entering into Vegetable Rooms can get suffocated because of presence of gases and lack of oxygen. It is important that people are aware of this fact and get out of the room in case they experience any discomfort or difficulty in breathing.

This book aims to dispel such myths, particularly regarding personal safety surrounding the science of refrigeration and place facts in their correct perspective. It is essentially written from the shipboard operator’s viewpoint, though I have included many incidents taken from shore archives. Though it is written by an engineer, even non-technical persons would find it informative and enlightening. Each chapter can be treated as an independent and a stand- alone topic, so one need not bother to attempt linking up to the previous chapters.

BOOKS DO NOT MAKE EXPERTS! The intention of this book is not to make experts out of laymen. This book is intended to create and spread awareness among seafarers of the dangers lurking in refrigerated spaces and refrigeration equipment.