CFD Simulation and Mitigation with Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion (BLEVE) Caused by Jet Fire

Alon Davidy

doi:10.3390/chemengineering3010001

Abstract

Different kinds of explosions are driven by the internal energy accumulated in compressed gas or superheated liquid. A well-known example of such an explosion is the burst of a vessel with pressure-liquefied substance, known as Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion (BLEVE). Hot BLEVE accident is caused mainly by direct heating (pool fire or jet fire) of the steel casing at the vapor side of the tank to temperatures in excess of 400 °C. Thermal insulation around the tank can significantly reduce and retard the excessive heating of the tank casings in a fire. This will allow fire fighters enough time to reach the accident location and to cool the LPG (Liquid Petroleum Gas) tank to avoid the BLEVE, to extinguish the fire or to evacuate the people in the vicinity of the accident. The proposed algorithm addresses several aspects of the BLEVE accident and its mitigation: Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) Simulation of jet fire by using fire dynamics simulator (FDS) software by using large eddy simulation (LES); calculation of the convective and radiative heat fluxes by using the impinging jet fire theory; performing thermochemical and heat transfer analysis on the glass-woven vinyl ester coating of the vessel by using FDS software (version 5); and COMSOL Multiphysics (version 4.3b) during the heating phase of composite and calculation of the time period required to evaporate the liquefied propane by using the first and second laws of thermodynamics.

Highlights

Accidental releases of pressure-liquefied materials are one of major hazards in process industries, transportation, or storage of flammable materials [1]
The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation of the heptane impinging jet was carried by using the fire dynamics simulator (FDS)
The numerical modeling requires much more knowledge than the conventional heat transfer approach such as: Arrhenius coefficients, and enthalpy of formation virgin material

Summary

Introduction

Accidental releases of pressure-liquefied materials (by bursts of high-pressure tanks, processing equipment malfunction, etc.) are one of major hazards in process industries, transportation, or storage of flammable materials [1]. Different kinds of explosions are driven by the release of internal energy accumulated in compressed gas or superheated, liquid [3]. An example of such an explosion is the burst of a vessel with pressure-liquefied material, known as Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion (BLEVE). It is most important physical explosion, i.e., not involving a chemical reaction [4]. It is caused by bursting of a pressurized vessel containing liquid above its atmospheric boiling point [5]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion