Impact of leakage location and downwind storage tank on the gas dispersion in a typical chemical tank storage area

Toxic gas leakage in a tank area can have catastrophic consequences. Storage tank leakage location (particularly for high leakage) and downwind storage tanks potentially influence gas diffusion in tank areas. In this study, we developed a numerical and experimental method to investigate the impact of a high leakage location and downwind storage tank on gas diffusion based on three (1.05H, 0.90H, and 0.77H, H was the tank height, 22m) leakage field experiments on the leeward side of storage tank, which have been not conducted before. The experiments revealed an unexpected phenomenon: the maximum ground concentration first decreased and then increased with increasing leakage height. The simulations illustrated that the differences in micrometeorological conditions caused the maximum ground concentration of gas emitted from the roof to be higher than that emitted from the tank wall near the storage tank height. The downwind storage tank 1) had little influence on the entire diffusion direction but altered the local diffusion pattern; 2) reduced the maximum ground concentration (∼18.7%) and the distance from the emission source (approximately a storage tank diameter); and 3) had strong influences on the concentration, velocity, turbulence, and pressure on the leeward side. The concentration negatively correlated with the velocity, pressure, and turbulence in the middle of the two storage tanks on wind centerline. Our results can improve understanding of gas dispersion in tank areas and provide references for mitigating loss and protecting lives during emergency response processes.     

Study on acceleration and suppression properties of coal gangue with different void fractions on gas explosion propagation

Gas explosion is one of the main disasters in coal mining. Plenty of coal gangue are generally distributed in the disaster areas in gob. Experiments were carried out to explore the propagation law of the gas explosion distributed by coal gangue. The variation characteristics of the overpressure, pressure rise rate, and flame shape with void fractions were analyzed. The results showed that the effect of the coal gangue on the explosion intensity changed from suppression to acceleration with the increase of void fraction, the flame front upstream blockage area changed from laminar state to turbulent divergent state, and a reverse flame was formed. When the void fraction of the coal gangue was 0.50–0.65, the maximum overpressure downstream of the blocked area were positively correlated with the void fraction and the critical suppression range was between 0.50 and 0.55. When the void fraction was lower than 0.50, the flame was quenched in the coal gangue, neither the flame nor the pressure could pass through the blocked area. It is helpful to guide the improvement of coal recovery process to avoid the expansion of the explosion impact in coalmine gob.     

An integrated EDIB model for probabilistic risk analysis of natural gas pipeline leakage accidents

Natural gas pipeline construction is developing rapidly worldwide to meet the needs of international and domestic energy transportation. Meanwhile, leakage accidents occur to natural gas pipelines frequently due to mechanical failure, personal operation errors, etc., and induce huge economic property loss, environmental damages, and even casualties. However, few models have been developed to describe the evolution process of natural gas pipeline leakage accidents (NGPLA) and assess their corresponding consequences and influencing factors quantitatively. Therefore, this study aims to propose a comprehensive risk analysis model, named EDIB (ET-DEMATEL-ISM-BN) model, which can be employed to analyze the accident evolution process of NGPLA and conduct probabilistic risk assessments of NGPLA with the consideration of multiple influencing factors. In the proposed integrated model, event tree analysis (ET) is employed to analyze the evolution process of NGPLA before the influencing factors of accident evolution can be identified with the help of accident reports. Then, the combination of DEMATEL (Decision-making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory) and ISM (Interpretative Structural Modeling) is used to determine the relationship among accident evolution events of NGPLA and obtain a hierarchical network, which can be employed to support the construction of a Bayesian network (BN) model. The prior conditional probabilities of the BN model were determined based on the data analysis of 773 accident reports or expert judgment with the help of the Dempster-Shafer evidence theory. Finally, the developed BN model was used to conduct accident evolution scenario analysis and influencing factor sensitivity analysis with respect to secondary accidents (fire, vapor cloud explosion, and asphyxia or poisoning). The results show that ignition is the most critical influencing factor leading to secondary accidents. The occurrence time and occurrence location of NGPLA mainly affect the efficiency of emergency response and further influence the accident consequence. Meanwhile, the weight ranking of economic loss, environmental influence, and casualties on social influence is determined with respect to NGPLAs.     

Influence of sewage culvert cover plate thickness on dynamic response and damage of the cover plate under gas explosion

In order to address the risk of combustible gas explosions in sewage culverts, a numerical model was established using ANSYS/LS-DYNA software. The model consisted of a culvert and a cover plate, and was used to study the effect of cover plate thickness (ranging from 0.08 m to 0.12 m) on the dynamic response and damage of the structure under explosive loads. The results indicated that, during the loading negative pressure stage, the equivalent stress peak value of the central monitoring unit of the cover plate first increased and then decreased with increasing cover plate thickness. Additionally, the maximum principal stress peak value first decreased and then increased, while the maximum shear stress peak value first increased and then decreased. During the loading positive pressure stage, the maximum principal strain peak value of the monitoring unit decreased overall with increasing cover plate thickness. However, the equivalent plastic strain peak value initially increased and then decreased gradually. The equivalent strain indicated that plastic damage occurred in the cover plate. Beyond a thickness of 0.11 m, increasing the cover thickness did not appear to enhance its resistance to plastic damage. The damage analysis revealed that as cover plate thickness increased, the peak displacement and velocity of the monitoring unit continued to decrease, while the overall stability and explosive resistance of the cover plate increased. Additionally, the number of damaged fragments decreased. However, once the cover plate thickness reached 0.11 m, the bonding performance of the reinforced concrete structure had been fully developed, increasing the thickness of the cover plate no longer had a significant impact on the explosive resistance of the cover plate.     

鱼体中多氯联苯的气相色谱/质谱分析研究

建立了鱼体中共平面多氯联苯(co-PCBs)和指示性多氯联苯(indicator PCBs)残留量的快速溶剂萃取气相色谱质谱分析方法.结果表明,18种多氯联苯在20 μg/L～500 μg/L范围内线性良好(r＞0.998),方法的检出限为0.2 ng/kg～0.5 ng/kg.当添加浓度为100 ng/kg时,多氯联苯的回收率为70.2％～113.5％.该方法前处理简便快速,准确性高,满足鱼体痕量多氯联苯残留的分析要求.     

Gas flame acceleration in long ducts

In many practical situations, a flame may propagate along a pipe, accelerate and perhaps transform into a devastating detonation. This phenomenology has been known, more or less qualitatively, for a long time and mitigation techniques were proposed to try and avoid this occurrence (flame arresters, vents,...). A number of parameters need to be known and in particular the “distance to detonation” and more generally the flame acceleration characteristic scales. Very often, the ratio between the detonation run-up distance and the pipe diameter is used without any strong justification other that using a non-dimensional parameter (L/D). In this paper, novel experimental evidence is presented on the basis of relatively large scale experiments using 10 cm and 25 cm inner diameter duct with a length between 7 and 40 m. Homogeneous C₂H₄-air, CH₄-air, C₃H₈-air and H₂-air mixtures were used and different ignition sources. The interpretation suggests that the self-acceleration mechanism of the flame may be much better represented by flame instabilities than by turbulence build-up. One consequence would be that the maximum flame velocity and, following, the maximum explosion overpressure, would be rather linked with the run-up distance than with the L/D ratio.     

An easy method to design gas/vapor relief system with rupture disk

Tank discharge gas/vapor flow problems are frequently encountered in both practice and design. To perform this type of design calculation, the first step is to identify whether the flow is choked or not through a trial-and-error solution of an equation for adiabatic flow with friction from a reservoir through a pipe. Developing a direct method without any trial-and-error to identify a choking condition would be helpful for expediting the flow calculations. This paper presents an easy and quick method to identify the choking of gas flow for an emergency relief system consisting of a rupture disk and vent piping. This greatly simplifies the design calculations. The proposed method for validating the venting adequacy of existing ERS circumvents the iteration calculation and the use of Lapple charts. Three case studies for the design of vent piping for rupture disks support the proposed method.     

Applying a new method for direct collection, volume quantification and determination of N2 emission from water

The emission of N₂ is important to remove excess N from lakes, ponds, and wetlands. To investigate the gas emission from water, Gao et al. (2013) developed a new method using a bubble trap device to collect gas samples from waters. However, the determination accuracy of sampling volume and gas component concentration was still debatable. In this study, the method was optimized for in situ sampling, accurate volume measurement and direct injection to a gas chromatograph for the analysis of N₂ and other gases. By the optimized new method, the recovery rate for N₂ was 100.28% on average; the mean coefficient of determination (R²) was 0.9997; the limit of detection was 0.02%. We further assessed the effects of the new method, bottle full of water, vs. vacuum bag and vacuum vial methods, on variations of N₂ concentration as influenced by sample storage times of 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7 days at constant temperature of 15°C, using indices of averaged relative peak area (%) in comparison with the averaged relative peak area of each method at 0 day. The indices of the bottle full of water method were the lowest (99.5%-108.5%) compared to the indices of vacuum bag and vacuum vial methods (119%-217%). Meanwhile, the gas chromatograph determination of other gas components (O₂, CH₄, and N₂O) was also accurate. The new method was an alternative way to investigate N₂ released from various kinds of aquatic ecosystems.     

Experimental study on the synergistic inhibition effect of nitrogen and ultrafine water mist on gas explosion in a vented duct

In this study, in order to research the synergistic inhibition effect of nitrogen and ultrafine water mist on gas explosion in a vented duct, a semi-confined transparent chamber was designed with the size of 120 × 120 × 840 mm, and the experiments were carried out with stoichiometric methane/air premixed mixture (fraction of methane: 9.5%), adding different fractions of nitrogen and ultrafine water mist. The experimental results showed the following: The combination of nitrogen and ultrafine water mist had a synergistic inhibiting effect on methane/air explosion, which was preferable to the single use of any kind. With the increase of spraying time of water mist and fraction of nitrogen, the initial shape of the explosion flame became snakelike, and at the same time the peak flame propagation speed and peak overpressure decreased significantly. When the nitrogen fraction was increased to 10% and the mist spraying time was increased to 2min, synergistic inhibiting effect on overpressure was high efficient. However, with the increase of spraying time of water mist and fraction of nitrogen going on, the amount of increase of explosion inhibition efficiency was gradually reduced.