Solid-liquid phase transformation of a phase change material in a rectangular enclosure with corrugated fins is studied. Employing a physics-based model, the influence of fin length, thickness, and wave amplitude on the thermal and fluid flow fields is explored. Incorporating fins into thermal energy storage systems enhances the heat transfer surface area and thermal penetration depth, accelerating the melting process. Corrugated fins generate more flow perturbations than straight fins, improving the melting performance. Longer and thicker fins increase the melting rate, average temperature, and thermal energy storage capacity. However, the effect of fin thickness on the thermal characteristics seems insignificant. Larger fin wave amplitudes increase the heat transfer surface area but disrupt natural convection currents, slowing the melting front progress. A surrogate model based on an artificial neural network in conjunction with the particle swarm optimisation is developed to optimise the fin geometry. The optimised geometry demonstrates a 43% enhancement in thermal energy storage per unit mass compared to the case with planar fins. The data-driven model predicts the liquid fraction with less than 1% difference from the physics-based model. The proposed approach provides a comprehensive understanding of the system behaviour and facilitates the design of thermal energy storage systems.

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Process accidents in the early 1980s have drawn process safety into the main stream. In the 1990s, risk-based approaches were developed to bring safety into design as well as economic considerations. In the 2000s, the inherent safety approach began to be practiced on a limited basis, and process safety evolution made significant progress. As process systems continue to become more complex and operations move into remote and harsh environments, traditional risk analysis may no longer be sufficient. Dynamic risk assessment is the basis for the next generation of risk and management approaches that help to enable safer complex process systems operating in extreme environments. This article investigates the main contributions in the area of dynamic risk assessment. Then, an overall framework for dynamic risk management of process facilities is proposed.

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Development of natural resources in harsh environments presents significant technical and logistical challenges. An industrial workshop on "safety and integrity management of operations in harsh environments" was organized by the safety and risk engineering group at Memorial University of Newfoundland to bring together industrial practitioners, regulatory authorities, and research and development institutions to identify the safety and integrity challenges in harsh environments, share experience, and develop a roadmap for desired solutions. This article summarizes the lessons learned from the workshop on safety issues in harsh environments. The workshop identified that there are safety challenges regarding construction and operation including a lack of detailed standards, optimization with respect to winterization, and data scarcity. The remoteness of operations in harsh environments is an additional challenge. Finally, human factors add another set of challenges that arise from the physical and psychological behavior of personnel in harsh and remote environments.

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Vast reserves in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions have attracted interest of the oil and gas industry. However, oil and gas development in harsh environments faces significant technical and logistical challenges. A workshop on "safety and integrity management of operations in harsh environments" was organized by the Safety and Risk Engineering Group at Memorial University of Newfoundland focusing on main aspects of asset integrity. The event featured representatives from industry, regulatory authorities, and research and development institutions. Participants shared experience and lessons learned, and together developed a roadmap for achieving desired solutions. This paper briefly reviews the lessons learned from the two-day workshop and shares recent developments and applications of risk-based approaches to degradation modeling, integrity assessment, and inspection and maintenance decision-making in harsh environments. The recently developed novel approach of risk-based winterization method is introduced. This approach helps to analyze how much winterization is sufficient to address local and regional weather loading considering operating envelop and criticality of the components or the system. A case study from the Arctic region is used for discussion.@en