API Standard 521 new alternative method to evaluate fire relief for pressure relief device sizing and depressuring system design

Since the 1950's, API Standards have provided guidance on determining relief loads for equipment exposed to pool fires. The API method is empirical based on tests performed in the 1940's. There is increasingly widespread interest in analytical methods based on heat transfer principles to model fire heat input. The API committee agreed to include an analytical method in the 6th edition of API Standard 521 to establish relief loads for pressure relief devices and to design depressuring systems for the fire scenario. The analytical method provides more flexibility than the empirical method but has limitations (e.g., too many permutations are possible leading to potential under-sizing of the pressure relief device).This paper discusses the basis for the empirical method in API Standard 521 and provides comparisons of the empirical and analytical method with two more recent large-scale pool fire tests. This pool fire test data indicates that the empirical method will provide a conservative estimate of pool fire heat input for most applications and is still the method of choice when designing pressure relief systems. However, these recent tests indicate the empirical method needs to be modified when a vessel or equipment is partially confined by adjacent embankments or walls equal or greater than the vessel height. In such cases, the wetted area exponent should be 1.0 instead of 0.82.The analytical method is useful in determining time-versus-temperature profiles for heating unwetted vessels of varying wall thicknesses and materials of construction. These profiles, which depend upon the type of fire (e.g., unconfined pool fire, jet fire, etc.), can be combined with tensile strength and stress-rupture data to specify a depressuring system's pressure-versus-time profile. This will minimize failure and/or mitigate the effects of failure due to overheating from fire exposure.