Case study: Assessment on large scale LPG BLEVEs in the 2011 Tohoku earthquakes

After the 2011 Tohoku earthquakes, several chemical and oil complexes on the Pacific Ocean shoreline of northeast Japan experienced massive losses. In Chiba, a refinery operated by Cosmo Oil lost 17 LPG storage vessels which were either heavily damaged or totally destroyed by fires and explosions in the refinery. These large vessels ranged in size from 1000 to 5000 m³. The estimated volume of LPG at the time of the incident was between 400 and 5000 m³ for each vessel. Five boiling liquid expanding vapor explosions (BLEVEs) of LPG occurred, resulting in huge fire balls measuring about 500 m in diameter.A BLEVE is defined as the explosive release of expanding vapor and boiling liquid when a container holding a pressure-liquefied gas fails catastrophically. It is thus important to estimate the physical properties of superheated liquids: the thermodynamic and transport properties, the intrinsic limits to superheating and depressurization, and the nature of thermodynamic paths. Also it is hoped to provide better understanding of the vessels designed, manufactured, installed, and operated to reduce or eliminate the probability that a sequence of events will result in BLEVE or loss of primary containment. Knowledge of these matters is still incomplete. The objective of this research is to estimate the significant BLEVE phenomenon in very large scale spherical vessels based on published information in Japan. There are some models predicting BLEVEs. However, it is essential to know if this is true for very large scales such as spheres since validation is usually rare to provide confidence in estimating the superheated liquids behaviors. To this end, comparing with the information on this event, the conditions in the five LPG vessels at the time of the BLEVE were determined in terms of: duration of vessel failure (time to BLEVE); mass fraction in the vessel with time; temperature distribution in the liquid and vapor region and pressure within the vessel (e.g. initial pressure and internal high-speed transient pressure during failure), by means of a computer program AFFTAC Analysis of Fire Effects on Tank Cars, which solves heat conduction, stress and a failure model of the tank, a thermodynamic model of its fluid contents, and a flow model for the lading flowing through the safety relief device. Subsequently, the consequences from the sphere BLEVE, such as the expected fireball diameter and duration and the expected blast overpressure produced by the BLEVE failures, are also subjects of active research. Here the blast using the methods of PHAST and SFPE Handbook of Fire Protection Engineering was calculated.Results suggest that methodologies here used gave reasonable estimations for such real and huge BLEVEs in a validated way, which may provide valuable guidance for risk mitigation strategy with regard to LPG facility in design, emergency planning, resiliency, operations, and risk management.     

A bibliometric study of pool fire related publications

Pool fire is a common form of fire, which is constantly investigated along with the development of fire science and is also comprehensively employed as stable fire sources in examining other fire scenarios such as building and tunnel fires. According to the records in Science Citation Index Expanded database in the Web of Science Core Collection, a total of 1073 articles or reviews related to pool fires have been published from 1966 to 2019. In order to have a better understanding of knowledge structure of this topic and further identify its development history and currently popular concerns, a bibliometric analysis of pool fire research is conducted by means of visualization software VOSviewer and CiteSpace. This work visually provides a comprehensive overview of pool fire research in terms of annual publication output, source journals, productive countries/regions, authors and their cooperation network, subject terms, and reference co-citation analysis. The analysis provides networks of co-cited references, authors, countries, subject terms, and their respective clusters, indicating their ranking in contributions to the pool fire related publications. The results can be applied to enhance the understanding of pool fire research and support further work in this area.     

BLEVE: The case of water and a historical survey

After a short update of the current more accepted definition of BLEVE, the special features of water BLEVEs are analyzed. The stronger overpressure wave generated in the case of water as compared to that of other substances is justified in terms of volume change. Through a comparison with liquefied pressurized propane, three possibilities are analyzed: the simultaneous contribution of both the liquid and the preexisting vapor, the contribution of the liquid flash vaporization, and the contribution of the pre-existing vapor. Also a historical survey on a set of 202 BLEVE accidents –the largest sample of BLEVE accidents surveyed until now– is presented. LPG was the most common substances in this set of accidents. However, water and LNG (11% of water and 4% of LNG in the studied cases) have also been involved. Impact failure (44.8%) and human factor (30.3%) were the most common causes of BLEVEs. Transport, storage, process plants, and transfer were the activities in which more accidents occurred.     

The boiling liquid expanding vapour explosion

The boiling liquid expanding vapour explosion (BLEVE) has existed for a long time and for most of this time it has been cloaked in mystery. Several theories have been put forward to explain this very energetic event but none have been proven. This paper describes a series of tests that have recently been conducted to study this phenomenon.

The study involved ASME code automotive propane tanks with nominal capacities of 400 litres. The tanks were exposed to a combination of pool and/or torch fires. These fire conditions led to thermal ruptures, and in some cases these ruptures resulted in BLEVEs. The variables in the tests were the pressure-relief valve setting, the tank wall thickness, and the fire condition.

In total, 30 tests have been conducted, of which 22 resulted in thermal ruptures. Of those tanks that ruptured, 11 resulted in what we call BLEVEs. In this paper, we have defined a BLEVE as the explosive release of expanding vapour and boiling liquid following a catastrophic tank failure. Non-BLEVEs involved tanks that ruptured but which only resulted in a prolonged jet release.

The objective of this study was to investigate why certain tank ruptures lead to a BLEVE rather than a more benign jet-type release. Data are presented to show how wall temperature, wall thickness, liquid temperature and fill level contribute to the BLEVE process.     

Blast overpressures from medium scale BLEVE tests

The measured blast overpressures from recent tests involving boiling liquid expanding vapour explosions (BLEVE) has been studied. The blast data came from tests where 0.4 and 2 m³ ASME code propane tanks were exposed to torch and pool fires. In total almost 60 tanks were tested, and of these nearly 20 resulted in catastrophic failures and BLEVEs. Both single and two-step BLEVEs were observed in these tests. This paper presents an analysis of the blast overpressures created by these BLEVEs. In addition, the blast overpressures from a recent full scale fire test of a rail tank car is included in the analysis.The results suggest that the liquid energy content did not contribute to the shock overpressures in the near or far field. The liquid flashing and expansion does produce a local overpressure by dynamic pressure effects but it does not appear to produce a shock wave. The shock overpressures could be estimated from the vapour energy alone for all the tests considered. This was true for liquid temperatures at failure that were below, at and above the atmospheric superheat limit for propane. Data suggests that the two step type BLEVE produces the strongest overpressure. The authors give their ideas for this observation.The results shown here add some limited evidence to support previous researchers claims that the liquid flashing process is too slow to generate a shock. It suggests that liquid temperatures at or above the Tsl do not change this. The expansion of the flashing liquid contributes to other hazards such as projectiles, and close in dynamic pressure effects. Of course BLEVE releases in enclosed spaces such as tunnels or buildings have different hazards.     

Numerical study of medium to large scale BLEVE for blast wave prediction

So far, the prediction of blast wave generated from the Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapour Explosion (BLEVE) has been already broadly investigated. However, only a few validations of these blast wave prediction models have been made, and some well-established methods are available to predict BLEVE overpressure in the open space only. This paper presents numerical study on the estimation of the near-field and far-field blast waves from BLEVEs. The scale effect is taken into account by conducting two different scale BLEVE simulations. The expansion of pressurized vapour and evaporation of liquid in BLEVE are both modelled by using CFD method. Two approaches are proposed to determine the initial pressure of BLEVE source. The vapour evaporation and liquid flashing are simulated separately in these two approaches. Satisfactory agreement between the CFD simulation results and experimental data is achieved. With the validated CFD model, the results predicted by the proposed approaches can be used to predict explosion loads for better assessment of explosion effects on structures.     

A closer look at BLEVE overpressure

The overpressure produced by the boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion (BLEVE) is still not well understood. Various methods have been published on the overpressure modeling in the far field. They mostly differ by the modeling of the expansion energy, used to scale the distance to the source where the overpressure needs to be calculated. But these methods usually include a experimentally fitted reduction factor, and are mostly overestimating the overpressures. Today there is a growing interest in modeling the BLEVE overpressure in the near field, for studying the blast effect on critical infrastructure such as bridges and buildings. This requires a much better understanding of the BLEVE blast. This paper goes deeper in the understanding of the physical phenomenon leading to the BLEVE blast wave generation and propagation. First, mid-scale BLEVE experiments in addition to new experimental data for near field blast from a small scale supercritical BLEVE are analyzed. And second, an analysis method of the shocks observed in the experiments is presented based on fundamental gas dynamics, and allows the elaboration of a new modeling approach for BLEVE overpressure, based on the calculation of the initial overpressure and radius of the blast.     

基于文献计量法的火灾灾害研究现状及展望

为了解火灾灾害研究领域的发展现状及未来趋势,基于多种可视化工具,对2014—2020年期间,火灾灾害领域内的发文态势、学术合作、学术热点、研究趋势等内容展开分析。研究结果表明：该时期内,火灾领域发文量呈持续上升趋势;我国科研活力及持续发展性均处于世界前沿地位,中国科学技术大学是全球发文量和合作活跃度较高的机构;载发文量排名前5的期刊研究方向和出刊数量整体呈现出一定差异性和波动性;研究热点涵盖基于无人飞行器的森林火灾(野火)侦测调查、基于火灾现场整体模型搭建的计算机模拟火灾事故技术与研究、火灾下建筑物构件的耐火及倒塌行为研究、池火燃烧特性试验及现象调查、火灾碎片实验与分析方法,研究内容总体呈现具体化、精细化;目前火灾领域研究的前沿方向为热释放速率研究、基于数值模拟的火灾事故研究、对点火器(源)的调查研究、基于数值模拟的火灾事故调查等;根据分析推测该领域未来的科研活跃度将继续上升。研究结果可为火灾灾害领域内相关学者把握学科现状,研讨未来发展提供参考依据。     

Sam Mannan and his scientific publications: A life in process safety research

Dr. M. Sam Mannan is one of the true pioneers in the process safety area, spending almost his entire lifetime in process safety and risk research. He was dedicated to ‘make safety second nature’ and published an impressive body of work. An overview of his research helps understanding the process safety area and provides insight in the legacy of this process safety pioneer. In this paper, 327 publications authored by Dr. Mannan from 1999 to 2019 in Web of Science core collection were downloaded and visually analyzed from four perspectives: his publication outputs, collaboration networks, topic areas, and highly cited papers and cited references. The results show a rapidly increasing trend in his research activity, mostly through journal publications. He published in 53 different outlets, with Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries being most frequently selected. Dr. Mannan had a very active and diverse worldwide network, and collaborated with 18 different countries/regions, nearly 90 different institutions and 387 authors. His publications addressed process safety-related topics widely, including safety related to liquefied natural gas, explosions, runaway reactions, inherent safety, flammability and aerosol, and more recently resilience. Dr. Mannan's most cited paper focused on ‘fuzzy risk matrix’, whereas the most frequently cited reference in his work is ‘thermal hazard evaluation by an accelerating rate calorimeter’ by Townsend DI in 1980. Based on his most recent research activity, promising future directions for process safety research include resilience linked to risk assessment and management, for instance through the ‘safety triad’ concept he promoted shortly before passing away.     

Calculating overpressure from BLEVE explosions

Although a certain number of authors have analyzed the prediction of boiling liquid expanding vapour explosion (BLEVE) and fireball effects, only very few of them have proposed methodologies for predicting the overpressure from such explosions. In this paper, the methods previously published are discussed and shown to introduce a significant overestimation due to the erroneous thermodynamic assumptions—ideal gas behaviour and isentropic vapour expansion—on which they are based (in fact, they give the maximum value of overpressure which can be caused by a BLEVE). A new approach is proposed, based on the—more realistic—assumption of an adiabatic and irreversible expansion process; the real properties of the substance involved in the explosion are used. The two methods are compared through the application to a given case.     

Bibliometric analysis of simulated driving research from 1997 to 2016

Objective: The objective of this study was to explore the evolution footprints of simulated driving research in the past 20 years through rigorous and systematic bibliometric analysis, to provide insights regarding when and where the research was performed and by whom and how the mainstream content evolved over the years.

Methods: The analysis began with data retrieval in Web of Science with defined search terms related to simulated driving. BibExcel and CiteSpace were employed to conduct the performance analysis and co-citation network analysis; that is, probe of the performance of institutes, journals, authors, and research hotspots.

Results: A total of 3,766 documents were filtered out and presented an exponential growth from 1997 to 2016. The United States contributed the most publications as well as international collaborations followed by Germany and China. In addition, several universities in The Netherlands and the United States dominated the list of contributing institutes. The leading journals were in transportation and ergonomics. The leading researchers were also recognized among the 8,721 contributing authors, such as J. D. Lee, D. L. Fisher, J. H. Kim, and K. A. Brookhuis. Finally, the co-citation analysis illuminated the evolution of simulated driving research that covered the following topics roughly in chronological order: task-induced stress, drivers with neurological disorders, alertness and sleepiness while driving, trust toward driving assistance systems, driver distraction, the effect of drug use, the validity of simulators, and automated driving.

Conclusions: This article employed bibliometric tools to probe the contributing countries, institutes, journals, authors, and mainstream hotspots of simulated driving research in the past 20 years. A systematic bibliometric analysis of this field will help researchers realize the panorama of global simulated driving and establish future research directions.     

Assessing the hazards from a BLEVE and minimizing its impacts using the inherent safety concept

Many worlds' major process industry accidents are due to BLEVE such as at Feyzin, France, 1966 and San Juan Ixhuatepec, Mexico City, 1984. One of the approaches to eliminate or minimize such accidents is by the implementation of inherently safer design concept. This concept is best implemented where the consequence of BLEVE can be evaluated at the preliminary design stage, and necessary design improvements can be done as early as possible. Thus, the accident could be avoided or minimized to as low as reasonably practicable (ALARP) without resorting to a costly protective system. However, the inherent safety concept is not easy to implement at the preliminary design stage due to lack of systematic technique for practical application. To overcome these hurdles, this paper presents a new approach to assess process plant for the potential BLEVE at the preliminary design stage and to allow modifications using inherent safety principles in order to avoid or minimize major accidents. A model known as Inherent Fire Consequence Estimation Tool (IFCET) is developed in MS Excel spreadsheet to evaluate BLEVE impacts based on overpressure, radiation heat flux and missile effects. In this study, BLEVE impacts are the criteria used as the decision-making for the acceptability of the design. IFCET is integrated with iCON process design simulator for ease of data transfer and quick assessment of potential BLEVE during the design simulation stage. A case study was conducted to assess of potential BLEVE from a propane storage vessel at the design simulation stage using this new approach. The finding shows promising results that this approach has a potential to be developed as a practical tool.     

Hazard analysis on LPG fireball of road tanker BLEVE based on CFD simulation

In order to research the hydrocarbon fireball characteristic of LPG tanker Boiled Liquid Evaporate Vapor Explosion (BLEVE) under different conditions, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations of the hydrocarbon fireballs from the LPG tanker BLEVE accidents were carried out. Several new different factors, such as the mass of fuel, inlet velocity and airflow velocity, were considered to analyze the influence on the evolution of the characteristics of the fireball and the development of the LPG tanker BLEVE accidents. Results indicate that the fireball with a greater mass of fuel radiates more heat but slower. The large longitudinal diameter of the fireball and high radiation heat flux are observed in case of a faster inlet velocity used for the same mass. The airflow was found to shorten the initial phase of the fireball effectively. Some suggestions were proposed to prevent the LPG BLEVE accidents. Analysis performed show that various parameters like fireball diameter, radiative heat flux and lifting speed of fireball can be predicted well using FDS code.     

Mapping process safety: A retrospective scientometric analysis of three process safety related journals (1999–2018)

Over the last decades, process safety has been an important area of academic inquiry, aiming to build knowledge which can contribute to reduce the occurrence of industrial accidents in the process and chemical industries, or to mitigate their consequences. Knowledge in this interdisciplinary research domain is created using applied science, engineering, organizational, and social science approaches. This article provides a retrospective overview of the process safety research field, through the lens of three major journals contributing to the development of this knowledge domain: Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries, Process Safety and Environmental Protection, and Process Safety Progress. An analysis of the articles in these journals, published between 1999 and 2018, provides insights in the structure, developments, trends, and highly influential works in this research domain, while revealing differences and similarities between these three core process safety journals. General publication trends, the geographic distribution of leading knowledge producers (countries/regions and institutions), their collaboration and temporal evolution patterns, topic clusters and emerging trends, and highly cited sources and articles, are identified and discussed.     

On the mechanism of a BLEVE occurrence due to fire engulfment of tanks with overheated liquids

The BLEVE (boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion) effect that involves the formation of a fireball occurs at the engulfment by fire of a tank with a highly flammable liquid or a liquid gas. Heating of the tank causes elevation of the liquid phase temperature and pressure inside the tank. A partial rupture of the dry tank walls is possible, with the formation of a rarefaction wave propagating into the liquid phase. An evaporation wave moves after the rarefaction wave and cause a rapid increase of pressure, exceeding the initial pressure before depressurization. Rapid violent destruction of the tank occurs. The mechanism of a BLEVE initiation is considered using Van der Waals isotherms. The following criterion for the possibility of a BLEVE was formulated. If the final state is located on an unstable part of the Van der Waals isotherm, a BLEVE takes place. Limiting values of the temperatures for overheating of certain highly flammable liquids and liquid gases (propane, n-butane, n-pentane, isopentane) were calculated using the proposed method, and were found to be in good agreement with experimental data available in the literature.     

Prediction of BLEVE mechanical energy by implementation of artificial neural network

In the event of a BLEVE, the overpressure wave can cause important effects over a certain area. Several thermodynamic assumptions have been proposed as the basis for developing methodologies to predict both the mechanical energy associated to such a wave and the peak overpressure. According to a recent comparative analysis, methods based on real gas behavior and adiabatic irreversible expansion assumptions can give a good estimation of this energy. In this communication, the Artificial Neural Network (ANN) approach has been implemented to predict the BLEVE mechanical energy for the case of propane and butane. Temperature and vessel filling degree at failure have been considered as input parameters (plus vessel volume), and the BLEVE blast energy has been estimated as output data by the ANN model. A Bayesian Regularization algorithm was chosen as the three-layer backpropagation training algorithm. Based on the neurons optimization process, the number of neurons at the hidden layer was five in the case of propane and four in the case of butane. The transfer function applied in this layer was a sigmoid, because it had an easy and straightforward differentiation for using in the backpropagation algorithm. For the output layer, the number of neurons had to be one in both cases, and the transfer function was purelin (linear). The model performance has been compared with experimental values, proving that the mechanical energy of a BLEVE explosion can be adequately predicted with the Artificial Neural Network approach.     

BLEVE火球热辐射及其影响评价模型介绍

高压液化易燃、易爆化学品储罐易发生BLEVE,引起热辐射,会造成周围人员伤亡和设备损坏.介绍了BLEVE火球热辐射及其影响模型,通过该模型可以计算BLEVE火球的尺寸、持续时间、升空高度、热辐射通量及预测暴露在BLEVE火球热辐射通量下人的致死概率.     

隧道火灾研究的知识图谱分析

为了解隧道火灾研究领域的整体情况,绘制隧道火灾科学的知识图谱,本文基于2000-2018年Web of Science和CNKI刊载的隧道火灾论文,利用VOSviewer技术,对隧道火灾科学进行全面可视化分析图谱显示,国际上隧道火灾研究的核心主题是Simulation、Tunnel Ventilation Temperature and Smoke、Tunnel Fire Safety,国内是数值模拟、隧道救援与疏散、隧道的消防灭火、火灾探测报警、隧道结构;高产的作者是Ji Jie和徐志胜等,近期活跃的作者是Zhang Shaogang和石晓龙等;开展隧道火灾研究的国家多位于欧洲。结果表明隧道火灾研究领域的发文量、主题分布及作者间的合作都已初具规模,国内更偏重于工程应用的研究,主题演变略快于国外,我国在此领域处于核心地位。     

LPG球罐BLEVE过程中超压与热耦合效应模拟研究

为评估LPG球罐发生BLEVE过程中超压与热耦合效应对化工企业抗爆控制室和避难所选址的影响,采用TNO多能法数学模型计算冲击波超压,采用多源数学模型计算火球热辐射。编写MATLAB计算程序,并应用ANSYS模拟二者破坏效应的耦合作用。LPG球罐发生BLEVE过程中,爆炸冲击波的传播速度、持续时间和火球的传播速度、持续时间不同,爆炸冲击波主要在燃料高速抛散的初期形成,之后基本与火球脱离。分别模拟计算冲击波超压和火球热辐射对抗爆控制室和避难所的影响,结果表明：抗爆控制室选址只需考虑爆炸冲击波的影响;避难所选址需要考虑冲击波超压和火球热辐射作用双重影响。在研究基础上提出,LPG球罐附近人员逃生的避难所应设置在球罐防火堤外紧邻防火堤处的地下,应具有抗震、防渗、防火、防中毒窒息等功能。人员应在BLEVE发生前进入避难所才能逃生。     

扑救液化石油气储罐爆炸火灾安全距离的确定

液化石油气储罐爆炸火灾是一类比较难于扑救的特殊火灾，如何根据现场的情况快速评估事故危害，并确定灭火指挥和人员疏散的安全距离，是消防指挥员指挥决策的重要问题，也是难点问题。本文研究了液化石油气储罐发生BLEVE时的热辐射和冲击波计算方法，并导出了安全距离的确定方法。对于消防指挥员快速决策具有十分重要的意义。