Numerical Simulation of Fire in a Gasoline Storage Tank in Reduced-Scale

Abstract

With the increasing demand for energy and fuels in Brazil, the storage of liquid fuels in multiple tanks is becoming much more usual, posing challenges from the point of view of fire safety. To study this type of phenomenon and to evaluate its possible causes, detecting failures such as ones in design and erection of storage systems or in detection and protection equipment, numerical simulations are performed based on real data. This work presents numerical simulations of a small-scale tank for gasoline storage, based on an experimental study reported in literature. The present research shows results related to temperature in the region adjacent to the tank on fire, fuel mass burning rate, heat release rate and average flame height. Comparisons are made between numerical and experimental results, as well as with available literature results for similar conditions. In addition to gasoline type C (which has anhydrous ethanol in its composition), also gasoline type A (anhydrous ethanol free) is considered. The results obtained for simulations with gasoline type A presented better agreement with literature data than those for gasoline type C, the differences being due to the variable composition of the type C fuel. For example, the reported fuel mass burning rate for gasoline in literature is 0.045 kg/(m2∙s), while the present simulations provided values of 0.038 kg/(m2∙s) for type C and 0.047 kg/(m2∙s) for type A.