Deterministic and Probabilistic Estimation of Appropriate Distances: Motivation for Considering the Consequences for Industrial Sites

Abstract

Accidents and disruptions in chemical process installations can, in principle, lead to the rare events in which the release of flammable and/or toxic substances occurs, and which at particular distances from the installation can result in a hazard potential due to thermal radiation, blast wave effects or the concentration of toxic substances. The possibilities and limits of deterministic and probabilistic estimation methods for appropriate distances from hazardous installations, based on the example of an ammonia release and a large surface fire, are shown. In this, it is demonstrated that the deterministic and probabilistic approaches are in no way conflicting or unnecessary, but rather that they are complementary. The use of a deterministic estimation method leads to a maximum set radius of effects which only take account of the damage impact. Depending on the selection of the appropriate and suitable consequence models, critical distances are calculated which are in some cases much larger than the current standardised distances, as is shown by the example of large-scale fires. The use of a probabilistic estimation method leads to a range of distances for which the individual risk can be given in addition. In principle, iso-contours joining points of same risk or areas of same risk may be defined through the use of such estimations.

Conclusions Drawn from the Buncefield and Naples Incidents Regarding the Utilization of Consequence Models

“…23). These types of effects should definitely be further investigated theoretically and experimentally [46].…”

Thermal radiation of di-tert-butyl peroxide pool fires—Experimental investigation and CFD simulation

“…In OSRAMO III [7] SEP act (d) is determined based on pdf distributions of hot spots and soot parcels. In this study an actual method is used to determine emission temperatures T and the surface emissive power SEP of DTBP and kerosene pool fires (d = 1.12 and 3.4 m) by evaluation of thermograms obtained by a thermographic camera which receives a thermal radiation from the fire [20,[22][23][24].…”

“…Several semi-empirical thermal radiation models are used to calculate the SEP of large fires: the point source model (PSM) [3][4][5]7,20,29], the solid flame model (SFM) [3][4][5]7,20,29,30] and the new organized structures radiation models (OSRAMO II, III) [3,7,20,24].…”

“…Accidental pool fires can happen in the process industries [1] and during the transport or storage of hazardous burning substances [2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. Some publications about hydrocarbon pool fires [4,7,[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29] exist, whereas only a very small number of papers can be found about organic peroxide pool fires [6,[17][18][19][20][21].…”

“…To determine the key parameter the time averaged surface emissive power SEP of a flame, also the flame surface A F should be known [7,[24][25][26][27][28][29]:…”