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.     

Injuries as a Result of California Earthquakes in the Past Decade

The devastating effects of earthquakes have been demonstrated repeatedly in the past decade, through moderate and major earthquakes such as the October 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake (5.9 on the Richter scale), the October 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake (7.1) and the January 1994 Northridge earthquake (6.7). While 'official' tallies of injuries and deaths are reported for each event, the numbers vary from report to report. For Northridge, the number of injuries vary between 8,000 and 12,000; the number of deaths from 33 to 73 (Peek-Asa et al., 1997; Durkin, 1996).While official estimates are commonly reported following disasters, the study of actual numbers, types and causes of casualties has not developed. In this paper, we identify the numbers and risk factors for injuries within community-based samples across three earthquakes in urban California. We first report the numbers and types of injuries in each earthquake and then identify risk factors specifically associated with the Northridge earthquake     

西宁及邻区地震活动特征研究

对西宁及邻区1900年以来M≥5.0、1970年至今ML≥3.0地震进行了分析,得到了该区5级以上中强地震的活动规律,认为研究区近2～3年内地震活动处于相对平静期,具备发生M5～6级中强地震的条件,发生6级以上地震的可能性不大.     

汶川地震期间天津地震前兆台网运行与管理

汶川地震发生后,天津市地震局迅速进入应急体制,高效应对突发事件.监测中心、预报中心全体人员坚守岗位,履行职责,较好地完成了汶川地震期间天津地震前兆台网运行监控、数据管理、台站综合评比、数据服务、总结评估等项工作,以无私奉献的团队精神为地震监测预报工作做出了应有的贡献.     

震前小震调制比空间异常消失的映震能力研究

利用小震调制比方法的时空异常进行跟踪分析,通过对比发现,近几年震前小震调制比的空间异常变化与有感地震的发生具有一定的对应关系.进一步的分析研究认为,利用震前小震调制比的空间异常消失可进行有感地震甚至中强地震的地点预测.     

陶庄矿区深井水位的发震信息

利用山东省枣庄市陶庄煤矿区鲁15井水位观测资料,采用多道Weiner滤波方法研究其中所隐含的孕震信息,结论是没有明显的矿震中期前兆异常,临震前兆异常明显,每次矿震前都有水位的短临变化。     

自然老化木材燃烧过程热行为特性研究

为提供古建筑火灾数值模拟及风险评估的基础理论,从自然老化角度入手,选取经过长久自然老化的建筑服役木材作为研究对象,通过扫描电镜(SEM)及热物性试验对比分析自然老化木材与参照木材的外观形态及热传导特征;采用差示扫描量热DSC法,研究自然老化木材在燃烧过程中热释放的阶段特性,分析不同升温速率对老化木材热行为影响特征;基于...     

Targeting vulnerability after the 2005 earthquake: Pakistan's Livelihood Support Cash Grants programme

The 7.6 magnitude (Richter scale) earthquake that struck northern Pakistan on 8 October 2005 was devastating. This paper gauges success in targeting vulnerable families during the transition from relief to reconstruction through cash assistance provided by the Livelihood Support Cash Grants (LSCG) programme. Families without a male member, with a disabled male member aged between 18 and 60 years or with more than five children, defined as vulnerable, were provided with USD 50 per month for six months via a bank transfer. The LSCG scheme enrolled around 750,000 families and selected 267,402 vulnerable families to whom it disbursed a total of USD 86.95 million. Using a community‐based survey, this paper assesses leakage and under‐coverage (exclusion). Approximately 30 per cent of families received the cash grant. However, only one in two was eligible for the benefit, and one in two deserving families was excluded. This is a matter of grave concern.     

Business recovery: an assessment framework

This paper presents a Business Recovery Assessment Framework (BRAF) to help researchers and practitioners design robust, repeatable, and comparable studies of business recovery in various post‐disruption contexts. Studies assessing business recovery without adequately considering the research aims, recovery definitions, and indicators can produce misleading findings. The BRAF is composed of a series of steps that guide the decisions that researchers need to make to ensure: (i) that recovery is indeed being measured; (ii) that the indicators of recovery that are selected align with the objectives of the study and the definition of recovery; and, where necessary, (iii) that appropriate comparative control variables are in place. The paper draws on a large dataset of business surveys collected following the earthquakes in Canterbury, New Zealand, on 4 September 2010 and 22 February 2011 to demonstrate the varied conclusions that different recovery indicators can produce and to justify the need for a systematic approach to business recovery assessments.     

Can the commons be temporary? The role of transitional commoning in post-quake Christchurch

ABSTRACT

In recent work on commons and commoning, scholars have argued that we might delink the practice of commoning from property ownership, while paying attention to modes of governance that enable long-term commons to emerge and be sustained. Yet commoning can also occur as a temporary practice, in between and around other forms of use. In this article we reflect on the transitional commoning practices and projects enabled by the Christchurch post-earthquake organisation Life in Vacant Spaces, which emerged to connect and mediate between landowners of vacant inner city demolition sites and temporary creative or entrepreneurial users. While these commons are often framed as transitional or temporary, we argue they have ongoing reverberations changing how people and local government in Christchurch approach common use. Using the cases of the physical space of the Victoria Street site “The Commons” and the virtual space of the Life in Vacant Spaces website, we show how temporary commoning projects can create and sustain the conditions of possibility required for nurturing commoner subjectivities. Thus despite their impermanence, temporary commoning projects provide a useful counter to more dominant forms of urban development and planning premised on property ownership and “permanent” timeframes, in that just as the physical space of the city being opened to commoning possibilities, so too are the expectations and dispositions of the city’s inhabitants, planners, and developers.