Prioritizing the Causes of Fire and Explosion in the External Floating Roof Tanks

Abstract

In the oil industry, many flammable products such as liquid hydrocarbons are usually stored in the atmospheric storage tanks. One type of these suitable tanks is the floating roof tanks. Among the floating roof tanks, external floating roof tanks are mainly used to store large quantities of petroleum products such as crude oil or condensate, gasoline, kerosene. The purpose of this study is prioritizing the causes of fire and explosion in the external floating roof tanks. In this study, firstly, the causes of fire and explosion of the external floating roof tanks were identified and then the obtained variables were scored by the process and safety specialists. In the next step, the causes were weighed and prioritized using the analytic network process method and Super Decisions software. The findings of the study identified 11 main criteria and 71 sub-criteria for fire and explosion of external floating roof tanks. Results revealed that several effective risk factors in the fire and explosion are natural disasters, static electricity, operational error, faulty firefighting system, maintenance error, piping rupture/leak, equipment/instrument failure, open flames, tank crack/rupture, runaway reactions, and sabotage, respectively. This study will help experts to identify the effective risk factors in fire and explosion in external floating roof tanks and their importance. Therefore, they can prioritize and implement the control measures to prevent fire and explosion incidents in external floating roof tanks.