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- Overpressure (2) (entfernen)
Industrial fire and explosion hazards due to accidents in fuel storage units have gained a
considerable attention in the recent times. Both the regulatory bodies and scientific communities
are heavily concerned about the proper safety measures to avoid such calamities in future. This
paper aims to bring some essentials related to the hazards arose from the recent fuel storage fire
accident occurred in Buncefield, UK (2005), Puerto Rico, USA (2009) and Sitapura, India (2009).
The potential similarities behind occurrence of these accidents are studied. The applicability of
various methods (models) and also computer simulations to estimate the safety distances
according to the international standards for both explosion and fire hazard are verified. The
overpressures caused by the Vapor Cloud Explosion (VCE) and radiation flux emitted by the fire
are considered for respective explosion and fire hazard estimations. The prime focus is placed
on the regulations laid down by the National Fire Protection Agency of the United States and
the European Norms.
The explosion and fire incidents with buried gas pipelines are increasing globally e.g. San Bruno (USA, 2010), East Godavari (India, 2014) and Ludwigshafen (Germany, 2014) are only a few to quote. There are a number of parameters involved behind the occurrence of these incidents such as human mistake, intended efforts leading to major or minor leak, explosion due to depressurization, crater formation, spill of gaseous fuel in the nearby regions and pool/jet/crater fires. In continuation to [3] these parameters are investigated for Ludwigshafen incident in the present work. The semi-empirical and advanced CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) based models are utilized to assess the damages caused by the explosion overpressures. Recommendations are also provided on minimum safety distance to be considered for such pipelines to avoid/foresee/mitigate similar hazards in future.