Advanced dynamic modeling study of fire and smoke of crude oil storage tanks

• Published in: Process safety and environmental protection Vol. 146; pp. 670 - 685
• Main Authors: Elhelw, Mohamed, El-Shobaky, Adel, Attia, Abdelhamid, El-Maghlany, Wael M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Rugby Elsevier B.V 01.02.2021; Elsevier Science Ltd
• Subjects: Burning; Burning rate; Combustion; Cooling systems; Crude oil; Crude oil tank fire; Dynamic models; Farms; Fire fighting; Firefighters; Flame shape; Flame temperature; Large-scale CFD model; Numerical simulation; Oil; Outbreaks; Pain; Pool fires; Qualitative analysis; Radiant flux density; Radiation; Security; Simulation; Smoke; Storage tanks; Temperature distribution; Temperature gradients; Thermal radiation; Thermal radiation intensity; Wind speed; CFD; RTE; LNG; DNS; CPU; Thermal radiation intensity; RANS; SUMED; MLRPUA; Crude oil tank fire; FDS; HUD; Numerical simulation; API; LES; SFM; FVM; Flame shape; Large-scale CFD model
• ISSN: 0957-5820; 1744-3598
• DOI: 10.1016/j.psep.2020.12.002

The combustion properties of large-scale crude oil pool fire have great significance for security design and firefighting of current crude oil reserves. Burning rate, flame shape and radiation intensity are the most important parameters for fire properties. The novelty of this study is that the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) is adopted to simulate pool fires in a tank farm. It does not only investigate and analyze heat radiation flux, but also the temperature difference rise and flame/smoke temperature contours behavior. This simulation is performed in order to predict the potentials of a large crude oil storage tank fire outbreak and the smoke temperature distribution that counters in and around the tank. These data are used in designing tank farms and applying the firefighting strategy. A super CPU with large RAM is used to operate the simulation program, to simulate one of the largest crude oil farms in the world. The model will be investigated for identifying the worst-case scenarios that might occur in a large crude oil tank. One of these scenarios might be fire outbreak in rim seal in one of the four storage tanks, where the fire is transferred to full surface fire. The model predicts the potential of tank fire outbreak, smoke tracing and both smoke/flame temperature that spreads at wind speed of 3 m/s, 9 m/s, 18 m/s in south-west direction. FDS model provides qualitative data that increase the level of safety, such as the minimum safe separation distances and the location of firefighters during the firefighting process. It also determines the most critical area, which is needed for water-cooling system. This study also tackles the duration after which human beings feel pain after being exposed to heat radiation.