Modeling impacts of combustion products on humans in complex processing facilities

Abstract

Heat radiation, combustion products, and flame engulfment are the main hazards from a fire event. Several reports have indicated that fire toxicity has caused greater numbers of human injuries and fatalities than those of heat radiation and flame engulfment. In a complex facility, the risk of fire toxicity increases significantly due to the difficulty of escaping in cases of emergency rescue and evacuation operations. This study proposes a methodology to model the impact of combustion products on humans. Several fire scenarios were considered to identify credible fire scenarios. In the most credible fire scenario, concentrations of combustion products over the layout of a facility were modeled. The results showed that the concentrations of CO and CO2 are below the short‐term exposure limit and lethal concentration 50 threshold limits at the considered time. The possible reasons for this are that the fire location was in a well‐ventilated area and equipment layouts were designed with proper safety gaps replicating a full‐scale dimension of an operating floating liquefied natural gas processing facility. The concentration of soot is above the threshold limit, and this has the potential to cause adverse health effects. This study can provide a tool for assessing fire toxicity in processing facilities, which will help improve safety measures.

Simulation Study on the Effect of Forced Ventilation in Tunnel under Single-Head Drilling and Blasting

“…e numerical simulation results are close to the monitoring results, and the rules are similar, indicating that this numerical model can effectively reflect the dilution process of the CO concentration in the tunnel. Since the CO concentration on the tunnel face can reach the standard limit of 20 mg/m 3 within 900 s under different air pipe layout conditions [30], the CO concentration distribution in the tunnel cross section after ventilation for 300 s, 600 s, and 900 s on the tunnel face ventilation is analyzed, as shown in Figure 7.…”