Most everyone has seen a bollard; they may not have realized what they were seeing at the time, but most have seen one. But this group of people who have seen one grows much smaller when we begin to ask “what makes a bollard a safety device?” A couple of years ago I shared an engineering standard for bollards and vehicle protection. That page has been viewed more than 200,000 times since 2012, so there must be some level of interest in these safety devices. I lost count of the number of e-mails I received asking if the post was a “joke”, as who in their right mind would have an engineering design for a post?!?! Well, a well designed, constructed, chemical process that utilizes mobile equipment within their process battery limits… that’s who! Just last year we issued several audit findings for either the lack of or improper design of bollards protecting bulk tanks and other “critical” process equipment. These were PSM audits… so what RAGAGEP did we reference?
Is a bollard just a post?