Filtern
Dokumenttyp
Sprache
- Englisch (2)
Referierte Publikation
- ja (2) (entfernen)
Schlagworte
- Acetylene cylinders (1)
- Cooling (1)
- Explosion (1)
- Fire (1)
- Numerical model (1)
- adiabatic compression (1)
- decomposable gas (1)
- explosion (1)
- fire (1)
- plant safety (1)
Preventing the explosion of acetylene cylinders involved in fire with help of numerical modeling
(2012)
The current paper describes a mathematical model, which was developed to simulate the heat transfer in acetylene cylinders during exposure to a fire. The cases of a direct engulfment of the cylinder in the flames and of exposure to a distant fire were considered. Furthermore, the model was also applied to the prediction of the heat transfer during the cooling with water of heated acetylene cylinders, in order to assess the effectiveness of this procedure as a measure to prevent the burst of the cylinder. To provide data for the definition and validation of the model a total of 13 bonfire tests with 8.9-, 10- and 50-dm³-cylinders were performed, where pressure and temperature measurements in the samples were performed. During 5 experiments the fire was extinguished before the expected cylinder burst and a cooling with water was applied. In the paper a short description of the experimental set-up and of the test results is given. Finally, a comparison with the model predictions is provided, showing reasonable agreement.
The polymeric industry handles Tetrafluoroethylene (TFE) as basic material for polymer (PTFE) and co-polymer (PCTFE) production. As a chemically unstable gas, it can react in an explosive way, without the presence of any other gases. Once initiated such an exothermic reaction can propagate through the pipe system of a plant and might lead to massive damages and/or fatalities. Especially after maintenance parts of the pipe systems can be filled with TFE, nitrogen or air at pressures up to atmospheric conditions whereas connected parts of pipes might still contain TFE at operating pressure state. Many of the regarding pipes are separated by ball valves, which allow a fast opening procedure. Thereby fast compression of the gas can occur and lead to a massive temperature increase which might induce unwanted reactions. Former tests in laboratory scale described by Meyer (2009) allowed an ignition of a TFE/air system by rapid compression only for a set of sharp defined boundary conditions. First tests in the lower industrial scale were done by Ferrero et al. (2013), where an ignition at typical industrial operating conditions was initiated. The results of the tests indicated that the critical achievable compression temperatures strongly depend on the setup and therefore on the pipe diameter as well. Therefore the necessity of further tests has been pointed out. The original setup presented by Ferrero (2013), which represents the smallest typical industrial size with an inner diameter of 1.125”, was modified to withstand an explosive decomposition reaction and to avoid a deflagration to detonation transition. Different safety concepts as burst discs and time controlled cut-off valves had been tested and evaluated to optimize the experimental setup for reproducible test conditions. This allowed the systematic investigation of the rapid compression of TFE–systems for the first time in the described scale without serious damages after an ignition. In the donor pipe always TFE at high pressure and in the receiving pipe TFE, nitrogen or air were present at an absolute pressure ranging from 500 Pa to atmospheric pressure.
The scope was to generate a “hazard diagram” in which the ignition probability in dependence of donor (high) pressure and the receiving (low) pressure is shown. Hazardous conditions can easily be determined. A reference method for the maximum achievable temperatures of non-reacting gas systems was created using an air/air-system. Thus reactive TFE-systems could be evaluated regarding additional exothermic effects. The final hazard diagram demonstrates that there is no sharp limit between a “safe” state and an “ignition” for a TFE/air-system. Rather a transition range exists, which decreases with rising donor pressure. An increased temperature in this range, sometimes combined with small pressure peaks in the profile, indicates first partial restricted reactions near the end flange. The more it gets closer to the “ignition” transition the more traces like soot or undefined solid fractions were found. A TFE/nitrogen- and a TFE/TFE-system could not be ignited at all. A description of the experimental tests as well as a detailed explanation of the hazard diagram will be presented.