Firefighting Equipment Arrangement Optimization for an Offshore Platform Considering Travel Distances

Byeong Cheol Lee,Youngsu Choi,Hyun Chung

doi:10.3390/jmse9050503

Abstract

The offshore plant, due to its characteristics, is subject to many restrictions on the material and design of the pipes. Because the design of the firefighting piping depends on the pre-set fire protection design, it is possible to reduce the cost of the piping design by optimizing the arrangement of the firefighting equipment. Existing studies have low accuracy in obtaining service areas under these conditions. In addition, the arrangement optimization problem is generally modeled as a set cover problem (SCP). However, except for the traditional greedy approximation, this problem is not well researched for general solutions. In this paper, first, a modified iterative-deepening search (MIDS), which accurately obtains a service area according to the travel distance in the grid space, is proposed before optimization. Additionally, this paper seeks to define a set cover problem by combining the subsets obtained by MIDS. Second, by using the traditional greedy algorithm, we obtained the initial arrangement of the firefighting equipment. Then, we proposed a method to obtain an approximate optimization solution using a modified greedy method including rearrangement. The validity of the proposed coverage area acquisition and arrangement optimization method is verified by comparing the performance with other algorithms. Finally, this study was applied to the drawings of an actual offshore platform.

Highlights

Fire can create a tremendous hazard for offshore platforms and tends to spread due to hydrocarbons and combustible materials
Most fire safety guidelines [3,4,5,6,7] stipulate that the fire hydrants and fire extinguishers for the initial suppression in the event of a minor or large fire be placed within a certain distance from almost any route that can be moved by humans [8,9,10,11,12]
The optimal design of the piping and firefighting equipment arrangement can greatly increase the safety of the offshore platform, so research on the optimal arrangement of fire hydrants/extinguishers for initial suppression is necessary

Summary

Introduction

Fire can create a tremendous hazard for offshore platforms and tends to spread due to hydrocarbons and combustible materials. When isolated offshore, it is virtually impossible to expect rapid fire suppression from onshore facilities Because of these characteristics, offshore platforms should consider fire safety from their early design stage and they are required to have rapid response capabilities with firefighting equipment [1,2]. The optimal design of the piping and firefighting equipment arrangement can greatly increase the safety of the offshore platform, so research on the optimal arrangement of fire hydrants/extinguishers for initial suppression is necessary. The purpose of this paper is to present the most efficient arrangement of fire extinguishers and fire hydrants for rapid suppression at the earlier design stage of offshore plants In this process, the optimal arrangement of the firefighting equipment to maximize the coverage area on the complex offshore platform is sought. When defining an area that a single facility can cover in the collective coverage problem of a given model, service is provided in a range that falls within a given critical distance [13], and all the consumers are guaranteed service in at least one facility

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Conclusion