Back to Search
Start Over
Accounting for channeling and shielding effects for vapor cloud explosions
- Source :
- Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries. 50:205-220
- Publication Year :
- 2017
- Publisher :
- Elsevier BV, 2017.
-
Abstract
- Vapor cloud explosions (VCEs) can cause significant damage to nearby buildings, facilities and infrastructure with potential loss of life and significant business interruption, so the accuracy of predicting blast loads on facility buildings is critical in estimating these losses. Closely spaced buildings and process equipment outside of the congested region of a VCE provide a complicated flow field for an expanding blast wave. Their presence can channel and shield the blast, resulting in significant effects on the blast load magnitude and waveform shape. Currently, the most common way to estimate applied blast pressures resulting from VCE's is to use simplified methods that account for the total energy from the stoichiometric portion of the vapor cloud, fuel reactivity, and level of congestion and confinement, such as the TNO Multi-energy, equivalent TNT, CAM, and BST methods. These simplified tools assume an unobstructed line-of-site condition, which can overestimate and/or underestimate blast loads. This paper illustrates the use of a fast-running Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) approach that can account for channeling and shielding effects without having to use a turbulent combustion model. This approach provides a convenient tool for designers and process safety planners to more accurately quantify the hazard from postulated VCE hazards that include site-specific channeling and shielding effects. The accuracy of the approach is demonstrated via comparisons of CFD simulations to experimentally measured waveforms. Computed pressure and impulse are also compared to the BST predictions for unobstructed and obstructed sites.
- Subjects :
- Engineering
General Chemical Engineering
Nuclear engineering
0211 other engineering and technologies
Energy Engineering and Power Technology
02 engineering and technology
Management Science and Operations Research
Impulse (physics)
Computational fluid dynamics
Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
Shield
0502 economics and business
Waveform
050207 economics
Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality
Blast wave
021110 strategic, defence & security studies
business.industry
05 social sciences
Structural engineering
Vapor cloud
Process safety
Control and Systems Engineering
Electromagnetic shielding
business
Food Science
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 09504230
- Volume :
- 50
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........4e653e5dc231e02c6ec70028aa34724f