Dimensioning of Danger Zones Emerging as a Domino Effect of An Lng Explosion for Industrial Plants Located in the Vicinity of Inland Transport Fairways

Abstract

Abstract The development of new technologies, the use and transport of LNG increases the number of investments that may mutually affect their safety on account of a domino effect. It means that a breakdown caused by one of the business entities may contribute to the escalation of a problem through thermal energy emission in another entity. The energy absorbed in an adjacent technological process line may cause irreparable damage despite the security measures employed. When planning an investment of a pioneering nature, one ought to consider not only the modern technologies used in a newly designed installation, but one must also pay attention to the direct neighbourhood of other industrial plants and the planned infrastructure, e.g. for gas transport or transhipment. Such a synergistic approach guarantees the safety of undertaken activities and ensures a stable, breakdown-free operation of all the business entities located in a given area. This paper discusses the issue of mutual influence exerted by two independent entities located within a small distance of one another, i.e. salt processing plant and a vessel transporting an LNG mixture. The authors considered a situation in which a breakdown occurs in an industrial plant and in which the released energy causes damage to a tank shell of an LNG carrying vessel on an inland fairway. In the examined situation the types of risks arising from LNG tank shell damage on-board an inland vessel were defined and the dimensions of the resulting danger zones were determined in a function of concentration of individual LNG components as well as the pressure and temperature generated inside the tank. The shape of the tank was also taken into consideration, since it affects fractioning in the course of the release of the substance accumulated in it. The analysis was conducted on the basis of DNV Phast 7.11 software.