Experimental study of the evaporation of spreading liquid nitrogen

The investigation of cryogenic liquid pool spreading is an essential procedure to assess the hazard of cryogenic liquid usage. There is a wide range of models used to describe the spreading of a cryogenic liquid pool. Many of these models require the evaporation velocity, which has to be determined experimentally because the heat transfer process between the liquid pool and the surroundings is too complicated to be modeled. In this experimental study, to measure the evaporation velocity when the pool is spreading, liquid nitrogen was continuously released onto unconfined concrete ground. Almost all of the reported results are based on a non-spreading pool in which cryogenic liquid is instantaneously poured onto bounded ground for a very short period of time. For the precise measurement of pool spreading and evaporation weight with time, a cone-type funnel was designed to achieve a nearly constant liquid nitrogen release rate during discharge. Specifically, three nozzles with nominal flow rates of 3.4 × 10⁻² kg/s, 5.6 × 10⁻² kg/s and 9.0 × 10⁻² kg/s were used to investigate the effect of the release rate on the evaporation velocity. It is noted that information about the release rate is not necessary to measure the evaporation velocity in case of the non-spreading pool. A simultaneous measurement of the pool location using thermocouples and of the pool mass using a digital balance was carried out to measure the evaporation velocity and the pool radius. A greater release flow rate was found to result in a greater average evaporation velocity, and the evaporation velocity decreased with the spreading time and the pool radius.     

低温乙烯储存过程风险评价及其缓解对策

为加强危险化学品储存的环境安全性,在深入调研危化品储存环节主要风险的基础上建立评价指标体系,采用层次分析法与模糊综合评价法相结合的风险评估模型对低温乙烯罐储存过程进行风险评估,并提出可行的控制措施。研究结果表明,储罐环境安全处于安全级内;针对低温乙烯罐存在的风险建立EHS一体化管理模式,建立全厂应急预案及一系列的风险预防措施,以缓解其储存过程的风险。     

Estimation of failure probability of oil and gas transmission pipelines by fuzzy fault tree analysis

Failure of oil and gas transmission pipelines was analyzed by fault tree analysis in this paper. According to failure modes of pipeline: leakage and rupture, a fault tree of the pipeline was constructed. Fifty-five minimal cut sets of the fault tree had been achieved by qualitative analysis, while the failure probability of top event and the important analyses of basic events were evaluated by quantitative analysis. In conventional fault tree analysis, probabilities of the basic events were treated as precise values, which could not reflect real situation of system because of ambiguity and imprecision of some basic events. In order to overcome this disadvantage, a new method was proposed which combined expert elicitation with fuzzy set theories to evaluate probability of the events. As an example, failure probability of pipeline installation was assessed by using the proposed method, achieving its fuzzy failure probability of 6.4603×10⁻³. The method given in this article is effective to treat fuzzy events of FTA.     

Societal risk acceptance criteria for gas distribution pipelines based on incident data from the United States

A significant number of pipeline operators use pipeline integrity management (PIM) to improve pipeline safety and reliability. Risk assessment is a critical step in PIM, because it determines the necessity of conducting the following steps in PIM for certain pipelines. Risk acceptance criteria are required in the process of risk assessment. Individual risk and societal risk are most frequently adopted as the two indicators of the risk acceptance criteria. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, quantitative societal risk acceptance criteria, especially for gas distribution pipelines, do not exit. The aim of this paper is to establish the societal risk acceptance criteria for gas distribution pipelines. Hence, FN curves were established using historical incident data from 2002 to 2017 provided by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). Linear regression and the ALARP principle are used in evaluating the limits of the negligible line and intolerable line to obtain a graphical societal risk acceptance criterion for gas distribution pipelines. A line having a slope of −1.224, and an anchor point of (1, 8.413 × 10⁻⁷) is proposed as the negligible line. Further, the intolerable line has a slope of −1.224, and an anchor point of (1, 2.524 × 10⁻⁶). Both the negligible risk and the intolerable risk for the gas distribution pipeline are lower than the current societal risk acceptance criteria for hazardous installations. The reasons for these relatively lower risk acceptance criteria are discussed.     

Dynamic failure assessment of an ammonia storage unit: A case study

Chemical Process Industries usually contain a diverse inventory of hazardous chemicals and complex systems required to perform process operations such as storage, separation, reaction, compression etc. The complex interactions between the equipment make them vulnerable to catastrophic accidents. Risk and failure assessment provide engineers with an intuitive tool for decision making in the operation of such plants. Abnormal events and near-miss situations occur regularly during the operation of a system. Accident Sequence Precursors (ASP) can be used to demonstrate the real-time operating condition of a plant. Dynamic Failure Assessment (DFA) methodology is based on Bayesian statistical methods incorporates ASP data to revise the generic failure probabilities of the systems during its operational lifetime.In this paper, DFA methodology is applied on an ammonia storage unit in a specialized chemical industry. Ammonia is stored in cold storage tanks as liquefied gas at atmospheric pressure. These tanks are susceptible to failures due to various abnormal conditions arising due process failures.Tank failures due to three such abnormal conditions are considered. Variation of the failure probability of the safety systems is demonstrated. The authors use ASP data collected from plant specific sources and safety expert judgement. The failure probabilities of some safety systems concerned show considerable deviation from the generic values. The method helps to locate the components which have undergone more degradation over the period and hence must be paid attention to. In addition, a Bayesian predictive model has been used to predict the number of abnormal events in the next time interval. The user-friendly and intuitive nature of the tool makes it appropriate for application in safety assessment reports in process industries.     

Safety assessment of natural gas storage tank using similarity aggregation method based fuzzy fault tree analysis (SAM-FFTA) approach

Fault tree analysis (FTA) is an important method to analyze the failure causes of engineering systems and evaluate their safety and reliability. In practical application, the probabilities of bottom events in FTA are usually estimated according to the opinions of experts or engineers because it is difficult to obtain sufficient probability data of bottom events in fault tree. However, in many cases, there are many experts with different opinions or different forms of opinions. How to reasonably aggregate expert opinions is a challenge for the engineering application of fault tree method. In this study, a fuzzy fault tree analysis approach based on similarity aggregation method (SAM-FFTA) has been proposed. This method combines SAM with fuzzy set theory and can handled comprehensively diverse forms of opinions of different experts to obtain the probabilities of bottom events in fault tree. Finally, for verifying the applicability and flexibility of the proposed method, a natural gas spherical storage tank with a volume of 10,000 m³ was analyzed, and the importance of each bottom event was determined. The results show that flame, lightning spark, electrostatic spark, impact spark, mechanical breakdown and deformation/breakage have the most significant influence on the explosion of the natural gas spherical storage tank.     

Study of the situation deduction of a domino accident caused by overpressure in LPG storage tank area

The production and storage of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) is gradually becoming larger and more intensive, which greatly increases the risk of the domino effect of an explosion accident in a storage tank area while improving production and management efficiency. This paper describes the construction of the domino effect scene of an explosion accident in an LPG storage tank area, the analysis of the characteristics of the LPG tank explosion shock wave and the target storage tank failure, and the creation of an ANSYS numerical model to derive the development trend and expansion law of the domino accident in the LPG storage tank area. The research showed that: 400 m³ tank T1 explosion shock waves spread to T2, T4, T5, T3, and T6, and the tank overpressures of 303 kPa, 303 kPa, 172 kPa, 81 kPa, and 61 kPa respectively. The critical values of the target storage tank failure overpressure-range threshold were 70 kPa and 60 m. After the explosion of the initial unit T1 tank, at 38 ms, the T2 and T4 storage tanks failed and exploded; at 56 ms, the T5 storage tank exploded for the third time; at 82 ms, the T3 storage tank exploded for the fourth time; and at 102 ms, the T6 storage tank exploded for the fifth time. With the increase of explosion sources, the failure overpressure of the target storage tank increased, and the interval between explosions continuously shortened, which reflected the expansion effect of the domino accident. The domino accident situation deduction in the LPG storage tank area provided a scientific basis for the safety layout, accident prevention and control, emergency rescue, and management of a chemical industry park.     

Epistemic uncertainty in fault tree analysis approached by the evidence theory

Process plants may be subjected to dangerous events. Different methodologies are nowadays employed to identify failure events, that can lead to severe accidents, and to assess the relative probability of occurrence. As for rare events reliability data are generally poor, leading to a partial or incomplete knowledge of the process, the classical probabilistic approach can not be successfully used. Such an uncertainty, called epistemic uncertainty, can be treated by means of different methodologies, alternative to the probabilistic one. In this work, the Evidence Theory or Dempster–Shafer theory (DST) is proposed to deal with this kind of uncertainty. In particular, the classical Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) is considered when input data are supplied by experts in an interval form. The practical problem of information acquisition from experts is discussed and two realistic scenarios are proposed. A methodology to propagate such an uncertainty through the fault tree up to the Top Event (TE) and to determine the belief measures is supplied. The analysis is illustrated by means of two simple series/parallel systems. An application to a real industrial safety system is finally performed and discussed.     

Reducing the risk level for pipelines transporting carbon dioxide and hydrogen by means of optimal safety valves spacing

In many countries where electricity generation is based on their natural resources of fossil fuels a need arises to implement new power engineering technologies that allow carbon dioxide capture. Simultaneously, efforts are made to find new energy carriers which, if fired, do not involve carbon dioxide emissions. Hydrogen is one of such fuels with this future potential which is now becoming increasingly popular. Obviously, this means that the two gases mentioned above – carbon dioxide and hydrogen – will be produced in large quantities in future, which in many cases will necessitate their transport over considerable distances. If a pipeline failure occurs, the transport of the gases may pose a serious hazard to people in the immediate vicinity of the leakage site. This paper presents an analysis of the possibility of reducing the level of risk related to pipelines transporting CO₂ and H₂ by means of safety valves. It is shown that for a 50 km long and a 0.4 m diameter pipeline transporting gas with the pressure of 15 MPa the individual risk level can be reduced from 1·10⁻⁴ to 6.5·10⁻⁷ for CO₂ and from 1·10⁻⁶ to 6·10⁻¹⁰ for H₂. The social risk can be diminished in similar proportions.     

米诺效应中的多事故点协同作用后果研究

为了研究多米诺效应中多事故点协同作用的后果,将并联系统概率模型运用到贝叶斯概率计算过程中,体现出多事故点协同作用对多米 诺效应传播的概率影响;后果分析部分从人、物、环境3个方面出发,对事故的后果影响以及事故预防提出建议措施。最后运用模型对实例进行 了应用分析,结果表明:多事故点协同作用下储罐的多米诺失效概率增大,罐区危险性增强,可以通过对储罐设置安全屏障等措施,有效的切 断导致事故最大概率的链条。     

Investigation of multiple domino scenarios caused by fragments

A model of multiple domino scenarios and the risk of the domino effect, which is a sequential chain escalating from the primary unit to the last unit, is presented in this paper. The trajectories of fragments from all units, the ground distribution of projectiles, and the risk of the sequential chain of the domino effect were calculated using Monte Carlo simulations. The results showed that the range affected by the fragments from each tank included the other tanks, meaning that fragments from one tank could hit the other tanks and cause multiple accidents, and that the sequential chain of the domino effect could indeed happen. The distributions of ground impacts showed that tank fragments were projected over long distances, up to 1200 m from the source. The spatial distribution of the kinetic energy at ground impact for tank fragments was also obtained. Moreover, the magnitudes of the probabilities of the primary, secondary, third, and fourth accidents in the domino chain were respectively about 10⁻⁷, 10⁻¹¹, 10⁻¹⁵, and 10⁻¹⁹. These results showed that for neighboring domino effect units in the same accident chain, the risk of the most recent domino effect was 10⁴ times that of the following domino effect.     

The study of burning behaviors and quantitative risk assessment for 0# diesel oil pool fires

The liquid fuel safety issues on fuel storage, transportation and processing have gained most attention because of the high fire risk. In this paper, some 0# diesel pool fire experiments with different diameters (0.2–1 m) were conducted with initial fuel thicknesses of 2 cm and 4 cm, respectively, to obtain liquid fuel combustion characteristics. Some key parameters including mass burning rate, flame height and the flame radiative heat flux, associated with fire risk, were investigated and determined. Subsequently, a detail quantitative risk assessment framework for 0# diesel pool fire is proposed based on the 0# diesel burning characteristics. In the framework, the probability of personal dead and the facility failure are calculated by the vulnerability models, respectively. In the end, 10 special tank fire scenarios were selected to show the whole risk calculation process. The tank diameter and the distance to pool fires were paid more attention in the cases. The safety distances in the cases are provided for the persons and nearby facilities, respectively. The paper enriches the basic experimental data and the provided framework is useful to the management of 0# diesel tank areas.     

An imprecise Fault Tree Analysis for the estimation of the Rate of OCcurrence Of Failure (ROCOF)

The paper proposes an imprecise Fault Tree Analysis in order to characterize systems affected by the lack of reliability data. Differently from other research works, the paper introduces a classification of basic events into two categories, namely Initiators and Enablers. Actually, in real industrial systems some events refer to component failures or process parameter deviations from normal operating conditions (Initiators), whereas others refer to the functioning of safety barriers to be activated on demand (Enablers). As a consequence, the output parameter of interest is not the classical probability of occurrence of the top event, but its Rate of OCcurrence (ROCOF) over a stated period of time. In order to characterize the basic events, interval-valued information supplied by experts are properly aggregated and propagated to the top. To this purpose, the Dempster–Shafer Theory of evidence is proposed as a more appropriate mathematical framework than the classical probabilistic one. The proposed methodology, applied to a real industrial scenario, can be considered a helpful tool to support risk managers working in industrial plants.     

Simulating on rollover phenomenon in LNG storage tanks and determination of the rollover threshold

Rollover is a potential risk to the safety of LNG storage tanks during the LNG storage process, so study of its prevention method is very important. In this paper, rollover phenomenon in a liquefied natural gas (LNG) storage tank is modeled physically and mathematically. Its evolution is simulated using FLUENT™ software from the breakdown of stratification to the occurrence of rollover. Results show that the evolution consists of three phases: the initial phase where rollover occurs near the side wall of the storage tank; the turbulent phase where rollover transfers to the center of the tank; and the final phase where new layers evolve. Based on these phases, rollovers in 160,000, 30,000, and 5000 m³ LNG storage tanks are simulated at varying initial density differences, and a rollover coefficient is defined to describe rollover intensity. The simulations show that the rollover coefficient initially increases within a small scope and then increases rapidly with the increment of initial density difference. This turning point is chosen to be the rollover threshold, which is regarded as the critical density difference in this study. The critical density differences obtained from the simulation results of the 160,000, 30,000, and 5000 m³ LNG storage tanks are 3, 5, and 7 kg/m³, respectively, which can be used as their rollover criteria to ensure the safety of LNG storage tanks.     

某储罐区火灾多米诺效应场景推演

化工园区中危险源众多,一旦发生事故很容易在整个园区内蔓延和发展.针对化工园区内储罐密集,容易引发连锁反应导致事故扩大的特点,利用FDS软件对储罐火灾场景进行数值模拟,根据储罐所受热辐射确定化工园区内储罐火灾最可能的事故发生序列,并引入基于设备失效前时间的机械设备故障概率模型对罐区内单个储罐的火灾风险进行研究,得到储罐区...     

Numerical study of dynamic response and failure analysis of spherical storage tanks under external blast loading

The performance of energy infrastructures under extreme loading conditions, especially for blast and impact conditions, is of great importance despite the low probability for such events to occur. Due to catastrophic consequences of structural failure, it is crucial to improve the resistance of energy infrastructures against the impact of blasts. A TNT equivalent method is used to simulate a petroleum gas vapor cloud explosion when analyzing the dynamic responses of a spherical tank under external blast loads. The pressure distribution on the surface of a 1000 m³ spherical storage tank is investigated. The dynamic responses of the tank, such as the distribution of effective stress, structural displacement, failure mode and energy distribution under the blast loads are studied and the simulation results reveal that the reflected pressure on the spherical tank decreases gradually from the equator to the poles of the sphere. However, the effects of the shock wave reflection are not so evident on the pillars. The structural damage of the tank subjected to blast loads included partial pillar failure from bending deformation and significant stress concentration, which can be observed in the joint between the pillar and the bottom of the spherical shell. The main reason for the remarkable deformation and structural damage is because of the initial internal energy that the tank obtained from the blast shock wave. The liquid in the tank absorbs the energy of impact loads and reduces the response at the initial stage of damage after the impact of the blast.     

危化品储罐区多灾种耦合效应风险分析

基于危化品储罐区内发生的多米诺效应，以单灾种引发的多米诺事故研究为基础，根据物理学中的触发器原理解释多灾种耦合引发储罐区其他罐体失效的场景，并提出基于物理学理论的多灾种耦合效应模型；基于一储罐区实例分别建立在火灾、爆炸情况下罐区的灾害扩展网络图，并通过无量纲化处理得到综合灾害扩展网络图；分析储罐区在多储罐受灾情况下的灾害扩展情形，得到当D1，D2发生灾害时，D4，D5灾害扩展概率最大；当D1，D8发生灾害时，D4灾害扩展概率最大，建立了多灾种耦合效应的关联图。研究结果对化工园区多灾种耦合的后果预测评估具有指导意义，有助于减少危化品储罐区多米诺效应的发生以及强化危化品储存的安全基础。     

An explosion of a tank car carrying waste hydrogen peroxide

On the Metropolitan Expressway in Tokyo, a tank car exploded because it was carrying hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) in a compartment in which copper chloride (CuCl₂) remained. Although the main cause of the accident was trivial, the background on the accident suggested that an induction period in the reaction led to a mistake. This report describes the experimental investigation of the catalytic ability of CuCl₂, and comparing it with two other copper(II) compounds (nitrate: Cu(NO₃)₂; and copper sulfate: CuSO₄) and three iron(III) compounds (chloride: FeCl₃; nitrate: Fe(NO₃)₃; and sulfate: Fe₂(SO₄)₃).The experiments were performed using a reaction calorimeter. During the experiments at 35 °C, 2×10⁻⁵ mol of copper compounds slowly reacted with H₂O₂ and generated a precipitate. The iron compounds allowed the hydrogen peroxide to violently decompose. A 1×10⁻⁴ mol solution of CuCl₂, however, produced a violent decomposition at 35 °C. At 15 °C, a moderate heat release occurred.Based on these results, the concentration and temperature dependence of the catalytic ability of CuCl₂ were postulated to contribute to the induction period observed in the accident.     

Decolorization of synthetic Methyl Orange wastewater by electrocoagulation with periodic reversal of electrodes and optimization by RSM

Treatment of Methyl Orange (MO), an azo dye, synthetic wastewater by electrocoagulation with periodic reversal of the electrodes (PREC) was examined. Response Surface Methodology (RSM) was used to optimize the influence of experimental conditions for color removal (CR), energy consumption (ENC), electrode consumption (ELC) and sludge production (SP) per kg MO removed (kg(MO_r)) with optimal conditions being found to be pH 7.4, solution conductivity (к) 9.4 mS cm⁻¹, cell voltage (U) 4.4 V, current density (j) 185 mA cm⁻², electrocoagulation time (T) 14 min, cycle of periodic reversal of electrodes (t) 15 s, inter-electrode distance (d) 3.5 cm and initial MO concentration of 125 mg L⁻¹. Under these conditions, 97 ± 2% color was removed and ENC, ELC and SP were 44 ± 3 kWh kg(MO_r)⁻¹, 4.1 ± 0.2 kg(Al) kg(MO_r)⁻¹ and 17.2 ± 0.9 kg(sludge) kg(MO_r)⁻¹, respectively. With the enhanced electrochemical efficiency resulting from the periodic electrode reversal, the coefficients of increased resistance and decreased current density between the two electrodes in the PREC setup were 2.48 × 10⁻⁴ Ω cm⁻² min⁻¹ and 0.29 mA cm⁻² min⁻¹, respectively, as compared to 7.72 × 10⁻⁴ Ω cm⁻² min⁻¹ and 0.79 mA cm⁻² min⁻¹ as measured for the traditional electrocoagulation process. The rate constant of decolorization was also enhanced by 20.4% from 0.152 min⁻¹ in the traditional electrocoagulation process to 0.183 min⁻¹ in the PREC process. These performance characteristics indicate that the PREC approach may be more promising in terms of practical application, as a cost-effective treatment, than conventional electrocoagulation for textile dye removals.     

化工储罐间距和体积对爆炸碎片多米诺效应概率的影响

化工储罐爆炸后将产生大量碎片,这些抛射碎片一旦击中相邻罐体容易引发多米诺效应。碎片的抛射方位和抛射距离具有很大的随机性,已有研究多采用概率模型来描述碎片抛射的各分过程。通过总结和发展已有的分过程模型,建立了求取多米诺效应的综合概率模型,并基于蒙特卡罗算法编制了模拟软件,可对化工储罐多米诺效应的发生概率进行预测计算。选取若干常用化工球罐为相邻目标储罐进行实例分析,计算结果表明储罐间距和体积是影响多米诺效应发生概率的两个重要影响因素：随着距离的增大,多米诺效应发生概率不断减小;目标储罐体积越大,多米诺效应发生概率将越大。其中,爆炸碎片对目标储罐的击中概率受上述因素的影响程度更大。该文工作对化工储罐区的安全评价具有一定的参考价值。