Library Subscription: Guest

ISSN Online: 2379-1748

8th Thermal and Fluids Engineering Conference (TFEC)
March, 26-29, 2023, College Park, MD, USA

HAZARD ASSESSMENT OF FIRE CONSEQUENCES FROM A FUEL STORAGE EXPLOSION

Get access (open in a dialog) pages 203-218
DOI: 10.1615/TFEC2023.cnm.046152

Abstract

Two relatively under-reported facets of fuel storage fire safety are examined in this work for a 250,000 gallon two-tank storage system. Ignition probability is linked to the radiative flux from a presumed fire. First, based on observed features of existing designs, fires are expected to be largely contained within a designed footprint that will hold the full spilled contents of the fuel. The influence of the walls and the shape of the tanks on the magnitude of the fire is not a well-described aspect of conventional fire safety assessment utilities. Various resources are herein used to explore the potential hazard for a contained fire of this nature. Second, an explosive attack on the fuel storage has not been widely considered in prior work. This work explores some options for assessing this hazard. The various methods for assessing the constrained conventional fires are found to be within a reasonable degree of agreement. This agreement contrasts with the hazard from an explosive dispersal. Best available assessment techniques are used, which highlight some inadequacies in the existing toolsets for making predictions of this nature. This analysis, using the best available tools, suggests the offset distance for the ignition hazard from a fireball will be on the same order as the offset distance for the blast damage. This suggests the buy-down of risk by considering the fireball is minimal when considering the blast hazards. Assessment tools for the fireball predictions are not particularly mature, and ways to improve them for a higher-fidelity estimate are noted.