Fire and explosion consequence modeling in the arctic region

Abstract

Pool fires and explosions are among the most frequent accidents in process facilities. For pool fires, flame impingement and thermal radiation are main hazardous characteristic. Whereas, overpressure and negative pulse duration are the main treats to human and assets in the case of explosions, Environmental variables significantly affect the behavior of fires and explosions. However, the effect of environmental parameters in the cold regions like arctic has not been sufficiently studied. This study presents two new models. A steady state and fully developed pool fire model that takes into account the effects of all environmental variables like temperature, the presence of droplets and surface reflexivity on the thermal radiation and subsequently on the fire consequence assessment. Another model has been proposed to account the effect of snow layers on explosion overpressure. A detailed description of model development and solution methodology are presented in the thesis.