Gexcon to present, sponsor and exhibit at the 2024 Spring Meeting and 20th Global Congress on Process Safety.

Facility owners and operators are often faced with difficult questions regarding their facilities’ safety. Many of these decisions have serious economic repercussions in the lifecycle of an asset and require further engineering analysis. Retrofitting an existing facility, adding new equipment, or building a new module in a facility can represent millions of dollars in capital and operational expenditures, so it is imperative to conduct proper assessments to achieve safety objectives in a cost-effective manner.  

This technical workshop will highlight case studies on how to address safety challenges as they pertain to facility siting. We’ll explore examples that demonstrate how to use quantitative, consequence-predictive tools for informed decision-making with safety as a priority. It will also address strengths and limitations with various study types as they increase in complexity, establishing a process to deliver comprehensive safety assessments with business economics in mind.  

Thermal runaway involving chemical reactions can be a complex process, which typically involve an exothermic reaction (i.e., a reaction that gives off heat). This will result in a temperature rise where reaction rates will exponentially increase with temperature. If sufficient cooling is present, the reaction will remain under control; however, if heat generation exceeds the heat loss, then thermal runaway can occur.

This paper will present the experimental methods used to predict the runaway condition from the auto-polymerization of 80% grade of divinylbenzene (DVB80) in ISO-containers on July 14, 2012 when an explosion and ensuring fire significantly damaged the container ship MSC Flaminia that was transporting cargo from the United States to Europe. This paper will discuss how certain investigators used incorrect test methods and erroneously concluded that DVB80 could not violently runaway and that “mild” exotherms were observed. While their test methods on “face” value appeared to take into account elevated temperature conditions, they mistakenly neglected the importance of increased heat loss due to the large surface-area-to-volume ratio inherent in smaller test apparatus. When these tests were repeated with appropriate lab scale calorimetry tests, violent thermal runaway was predicted as well as the time to runaway conditions. To validate the accuracy of the new test, actual full-scale runaway tests were performed with an actual ISO-container. The lab scale calorimetry tests agreed very well with the full-scale ISO-container tests, whereby the time to thermal runaway was very accurately predicted and demonstrated the importance of taking into account scaling issues when investigation runaway conditions.

A maioria das análises de localização de instalações começa com uma análise empírica básica das consequências do pior caso. Em muitos desses estudos o que acontece e que rapidamente demostramos que o impacto nos edifícios excede os critérios aceitáveis e requerem uma análise mais aprofundada. O próximo nível de análise inclui várias técnicas para reequilibrar o conservadorismo e o realismo, incluindo estudos quantitativos baseados no risco que produzem curvas de excedência, etc. as mudanças no próprio esforço de modelagem de consequências – não é incomum que esses estudos resultem em cargas de projeto que exigem reformas dispendiosas nos edifícios. 

Como etapa final, alguns desses estudos recorrerão à dinâmica de fluidos computacional (CFD) para justificar evitar essas modernizações dispendiosas. Ao seguir este processo, o custo do estudo de localização da instalação é maximizado e há uma maior probabilidade de que retrofits dispendiosos de edifícios que não sejam realmente aprovados numa análise de custo-benefício possam ser forçados a avançar. Este artigo demonstrará alguns dos benefícios do uso de modelagem CFD mais realista no início do processo para refletir com mais precisão a extensão real dos danos potenciais ao edifício. 

Ao usar a combinação certa de modelagem empírica e CFD antecipadamente como parte de uma análise baseada em risco, os estudos de localização das instalações podem refletir de forma mais realista o dano potencial e fornecer maior custo-benefício – ou seja, reduzir o verdadeiro custo geral do estudo, ao mesmo tempo que sendo também mais realista sobre quando poderá ser necessário reformar edifícios para atender a determinadas cargas acidentais de projeto. O artigo se concentrará em um exemplo real desta aplicação.

With the advent of hydrogen as a future clean fuel and energy carrier due to its lower CO2 emissions, it imperative that we fully understand and manage the risks associated with hydrogen technology to ensure its safe implementation. While many of the historical incidents involving hydrogen have similarities to other fossil fuels, it is important to understand hydrogen’s unique properties and associated hazards. Hydrogen can be stored and transported as a compressed gas, however, due to its comparatively small energy content per unit volume as a gas, it is necessary in some instances to liquefy hydrogen.

Given the complex conditions in which hydrogen can be used and stored, it is important to understand all the possible nuisances of this fuel in order to define basic safety specifications and avoid possible pitfalls. This is especially true given the very high reactivity of hydrogen, its extensive flammability range, extremely low ignition energy, and its ease of transitioning to detonations as compared to other traditional hydrocarbon fuel gases. This paper summarizes the critical combustion parameters associated with hydrogen and discusses its unique properties when it comes to evaluating unintentional releases. Novel experimental results will be shown to demonstrate such aspects. It will also provide critical safety strategies that will help reduce the likelihood and consequences of unintended catastrophic events, with the ultimate goal of ensuring that hydrogen is used safely and that certain pitfalls are avoided due to the unique properties of the fuel.