Hazard assessment and hazard mitigation of fuel leak inside a ship elevator for LNG-fueled vessel.

The demands of passing through dams are on the raise with increasing in the number of LNG fueled-vessels recently. Ship elevators that is a convenient means to pass through high-dam navigable waters play an important role, however, when the LNG fueled-vessels pass through the ship elevator, there are high risks of combustion caused by LNG fuel leak, and even leading to explosion due to the semi-closed structure of ship elevators, which hazard people's lives, and structures. In this study, the largest ship elevator worldwide located at the Three Gorges is chosen as the research object. A quantitative method of assessing the combustion and explosion hazards to the people and structure from LNG fuel leak accidents inside ship elevator is proposed, and the numerical simulations of three typical LNG leak accidents are carried out based on the heat transmission mechanism of LNG liquid-phase leaks on water surfaces constructed in our paper, finally, corresponding hazard mitigation measures are proposed according to analysis results and their validity is proved. Our work discloses the hazard level of fuel leak accidents when an LNG fueled-vessel passes the ship elevator, and provides theoretical references to risk decision-making and risk management of LNG fueled-vessels passing ship elevators. • A quantitative method of assessing the hazards exposed on people and structure from LNG fuel leak accidents in the ship elevator is proposed. • Numerical simulations of leak accidents are carried out based on user-defined heat transmission mechanism of LNG liquid-phase leaks. • Two measures to mitigate the LNG leak hazards inside a ship elevator are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]