MODELING AND ESTIMATION OF THERMAL RADIATION FROM LARGE HYDROCARBON POOL FIRE

Abstract

Safe storage of hydrocarbon fuels are necessary in petroleum refineries and petrochemical plants. Leakage, damage or accidents in such storages are the most common cause for fire resulting in huge losses. Many storage depots are located near the residential areas in India. In India most of the oil storage depots are not installed by fixed fire fighting system. Fixed water system must be installed in order to protect the tanks from radiative heat flux coming from the source. Tank farm fire results in the emission of heat and harmful smokes. This heat spread to the environment as radiant heat flux. The systematic plant layout must be design to avoid the thermal radiation to cross its thermal limits. Therefore all process equipments, adjoining tanks, residential areas must be situated in safe separation distance. The present dissertation entitled "Modeling And Estimation of Thermal Radiation from Hydrocarbon Pool Fire" deals with the establishment of semi-empirical models for the flame geometry and radiative heat flux incident on hydrocarbon storage tanks due to fire radiation under different environmental conditions and confirms the accurate calculation methods, which further ensures the calculation methods of water supply for cooling storage tanks under fire radiation. The shokri-beyler's method, mudan's method, and point source method have been used for the calculation of radiative heat flux and the results from this methods is compared with present model. The safe separation distance is also estimated from the fire source for the surrounding vegetations, working personal and adjoining tanks