Methods for determining the optimal arrangement of water deluge systems on offshore installations

Abstract

Offshore installations are prone to fire and/or explosion accidents. Fires have particularly serious consequences due to their high temperatures and heat flux, which affect humans, structures and environments alike. Due to the hydrocarbon explosions caused by delayed ignition following gas dispersion, fires can be the result of immediate ignition after gas release. Accordingly, it can be difficult to decrease their frequency, which is an element of risk (risk = frequency x consequence), using an active protection system (APS) such as gas detectors capable of shutting down the operation. Thus, it is more efficient to reduce the consequence using a passive protection system (PSS) such as water spray. It is important to decide the number and location of water deluge systems, thus the aim of this study is to introduce a new procedure for optimising the locations of water deluge systems using the water deluge location index (WLI) proposed herein. The locations of water deluge systems are thus optimised based on the results of credible fire scenarios using a three-dimensional (3D) computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tool. The effects of water spray and the effectiveness of the WLI are investigated in comparison with uniformly distributed sprays. Keywords 2 / 29 offshore installations, fire accidents, optimisation of water deluge systems, water deluge location index (WLI)

Efficient water deluge nozzles arrangement on offshore installations for the suppression of pool fires

“…To reduce the risk of uncertainty in the conventional method, it is necessary to take a probabilistic approach based on engineering technology. Kim et al (2016) successfully implemented a procedure for selecting efficient water deluge system locations to prevent, and reduce the consequences of, jet fire accidents on offshore installations.…”

“…They suggested the use of a water deluge index, based on the characteristics of jet fires, to determine the efficient locations of water deluge nozzles. The present paper is a sequel to the previous paper (Kim et al, 2016). In contrast to the previous paper, which concerned jet fires, this paper focuses on pool fires.…”

“…Seo et al (2013) introduced a method for determining efficient gas detector locations using a quantitative approach. Recently, Kim et al (2016) stressed water deluge location in the control of jet fires, and successfully implemented the approximate optimisation method to calculate the efficient nozzle locations for offshore platforms. They suggested the use of a water deluge index, based on the characteristics of jet fires, to determine the efficient locations of water deluge nozzles.…”

Analysis of effectiveness of fire safety in machinery spaces

“…While this wider safety research does not directly relate to fire safety in machinery spaces, its application may provide holistic improvements in fire safety in ships, which would ultimately include the machinery spaces. This systematic approach to accident prevention is not at the expense of analysis of individual features of fire prevention however and can be noted in the literature covering human and organisational factors, historical causal factors of fires in maritime transportation, calculation of fire probability (25)(26)(27), along with fire impact analysis research focusing on mitigating the outbreak of fire (28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36)(37)(38)(39)(40)(41).…”