Large Pool Fires in the Process Industry. A Simple Model for Safety Distances Estimation

Abstract

In recent years, the global production growth and the complexity of processes operation have increased safety concern, especially during the design project, considering potential accidental events as fires, explosions, and their related domino effects. Pool fire is one of the most frequent accidental events. Some procedures for safety distances estimation from pool fires were reported. However, there is a lack of adequate simple models to directly estimate safety distances covering a wide range of substances and pool diameters, considering a continuous interval of receptor vulnerabilities (from damage to people to domino effect prevention). In this paper, a simple model to estimate safety distances is proposed, suitable to be incorporated into complex models (e.g. safety management systems, layout optimization). A surrogate model is achieved by adopting a reference one. Methodologically, the main variables that play a key role modelling a pool fire were selected and their influence on the safety distance was analyzed to propose simple mathematical expressions. NLP optimization problems were solved to optimize the model parameters. A conservative, accurate and easy-to-use model was achieved with the aim of developing safer plants or for their safe operation by improving the optimal process design, or implementing safe management systems, considering risks.