A simplified statistic-based procedure for gas dispersion prediction of fixed offshore platform

• Published in: Process safety and environmental protection Vol. 114; pp. 48 - 63
• Main Authors: Shi, Jihao, Li, Jingde, Zhu, Yuan, Hao, Hong, Chen, Guoming, Xie, Bin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Rugby Elsevier B.V 01.02.2018; Elsevier Science Ltd
• Subjects: Automatically Selected Model Technology; Cloud computing; Codification; Computation cost reduction; Computer simulation; Correlation; Correlation analysis; Dimensionless analysis; Dimensionless respond surface method; Dispersion; Experiments; Explosion risk analysis; Factorial design; Flammability; Frozen Cloud Approach; Fuel-dominated region; Gases; Offshore drilling rigs; Offshore engineering; Parameters; Predictions; Response surface methodology; Risk analysis; Simulation; Computation cost reduction; Automatically Selected Model Technology; Dimensionless respond surface method; Explosion risk analysis; Frozen Cloud Approach; Fuel-dominated region
• ISSN: 0957-5820; 1744-3598
• DOI: 10.1016/j.psep.2017.12.002

•Simplified and user-friendly procedure is proposed for flammable cloud size prediction.•The simplified procedure is more robust and computational efficient than conventional gas cloud prediction procedures.•The simplified procedure is more accurate than Frozen Cloud Approach counterpart in gas cloud volume calculation.•The simplified procedure can be used for explosion risk analysis with stochastic simulation technique. In explosion risk analysis, Frozen Cloud Approach (FCA) and Dimensionless Response Surface Method (DRSM) are both commonly used to achieve a balance between simulation workloads and accurate results. However, the drawbacks of these two approaches are obvious. FCA is not reliable for risk study of fuel-dominated regions. Whereas DRSM usually couples the dimensionless parameters and generates a large numbers of correlations to predict the flammable cloud size, which brings a heavy computation burden for engineers. Therefore, this paper aims to propose a simplified procedure which can quickly and accurately provide a large number of non-simulation data based on limited CFD simulation data. Full Factorial Design of Experiment (FFDOE) based RSM is adopted. Codification is applied to couple all the dimensional parameters into a single correlation. Automatically Selected Model Technology (ASMT) is used to easily determine the suitable structure of correlation. Compared to the conventional procedures, the simplified procedure is proven to be more robust. For subsequent Explosion risk analyses (ERAs) in the fuel-dominated regions, the simplified procedure becomes a superior alternative.