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Chris Coffey, our Global FLACS Product Manager, and his team led FLUG Week from September 27th-October 1st 2021 to talk about the latest software update and exciting plans for the future.
The FLACS User Group (FLUG) is a high profile discussion forum for engineers, safety experts and industry scholars.
FLUG meets to discuss new software developments and safety-related topics. Its work has played an integral role in the development of Gexcon’s industry leading software, which represents more than 40 years of extensive and unrivalled modelling and validation work.
Members of FLUG also deliver presentations during the event to share their experiences and knowledge.
Monday 27th September
11.00 CEST
Chris Coffey, FLACS-CFD Product Manager @ Gexcon
Presentation: The direction of FLACS-CFD
Gexcon shares its vision and roadmap for FLACS-CFD, providing insights into exciting new features in the pipeline.
14.00 CEST
Djurre Siccama, Senior Manager @ Gexcon
Presentation: Beyond boxes and cylinders – the challenges and opportunities for using mesh geometries in FLACS-CFD.
Traditionally FLACS-CFD has used box and cylinder volumetric primitive objects exclusively to represent complex geometry. This engineering approach has many advantages and has worked well for various types of installation. However, with ever more complex CAD models, shorter project timelines, and new application areas, this approach is becoming more and more limiting. This is one of the reasons why we are developing new routines and algorithms to use mesh geometric objects directly in FLACS-CFD simulations
Djurre presents the work that has been done so far on supporting mesh object geometries in future versions of FLACS-CFD, including some initial validation.
16.00 CEST
Shona Mackie, Senior Research Engineer @ Gexcon
Presentation: FLACS-CFD Validation and Sensitivities
Shona discusses the importance and challenges of validating FLACS-CFD to ensure its accuracy and reliability for simulating the consequences of loss of containment scenarios. Shona demonstrates how Gexcon’s R&D team validates FLACS-CFD. She also presents some plots that were used to determine appropriate recommendations for cases where the initial turbulence conditions are unknown and must be assumed.
In addition, the presentation discusses the work to assess FLACS-CFD sensitivity to grid resolution and how this sensitivity affects simulation accuracy, which led to the recommended grid resolution for gas explosions being revised.
Tuesday 28th September
11.00 CEST
Deiveegan Muthusamy, Principal Research Engineer @ Gexcon
Presentation: FLACS-Fire recent developments, validation and future plans
14.00 CEST
Francesco Chillè, Independent Consultant @ FCSolutionS
Presentation: Using FLACS-Fire on real cases: a user experience
The presentation highlights some of the aspects which have a significant impact on the effectiveness and the efficiency of an analysis process using FLACS-Fire.
16.00 CEST
Sai Mahith Thummaluru, Safety Engineer @ BASF
Presentation: Investigations on pool evaporation and vapour cloud explosions in Industrial environments.
The presentation deals with sensitivity studies of parameters such as grid, surface roughness, stability class and their influence in pool evaporation. An overview of pool evaporation and vapour cloud explosions modelling in industrial environments using FLACS-CFD.
Wednesday 29th September
11.00 CEST
Olav Roald Hansen, CEO and founder @ HYEX Safety AS
Presentation: FLACS used for hydrogen and hydrogen fuels
HYEX Safety is focusing on hydrogen and hydrogen solutions in our presentation. Compared to traditional risk assessments for oil and gas, this evolving market is different in many ways – it shifts focus and different physics need to be modelled.
The presentation gives some insight into typical calculations performed for this industry and will illustrate challenges when modelling relevant scenarios with compressed hydrogen, LH2, as well as hydrogen fuels like ammonia and methanol.
14.00 CEST
Pablo Giacopinelli, Senior Engineer @ Gexcon
Presentation: The use of CFD for the design of hydrogen bulk storage areas
There are few available relevant guidance documents/standards for the design of these areas in terms of safety during an ignited event (e.g. COP CP 33). Based on a case study on a real facility undertaken by Gexcon, it is felt that the safety distances outlined in the code of practice could be under-predicted in some circumstances, which could lead to inadequate separation distances, resulting in non-conservative designs, higher risks, non-ALARP designs, etc.
This presentation aims to investigate the discrepancies between the currently available guidance with the results from our case study.
16.00 CEST
FENG Yuxiang, Process Engineer @ China Classification Society (CCS)
Presentation: Safety analysis and risk control of shore-based bunkering operations for a hydrogen-powered ship
In order to ensure the safety of shore-based hydrogen bunkering operations, this study takes a 2000-tonne bulk hydrogen-powered ship as an example. Firstly, the HAZID method is used to identify the hazards of hydrogen bunkering, then the probability of each scenario is analyzed, and the consequences of scenarios with high risk based on FLACS-CFD are simulated. Finally, the personal risks of bunkering operations are evaluated and the bunkering restriction area is defined. The results show that the personal risk of shore-based bunkering operations of the hydrogen-powered ship is acceptable but risk control measures should be taken.
Thursday 30th September
11.00 CEST
Lorenzo Mauri, Principal Research Engineer @ Gexcon
Presentation: Recent research activity at Gexcon
This presentation discusses the recent research activity in Gexcon including achievements and challenges of selected research projects.
14.00 CEST
Prankul Middha, Principal Consultant and Director @ Abercus
Presentation: Uncertainties in probabilistic explosion risk analysis
16.00 CEST
Jihui Geng, Senior Principal Scientist @ BakerRisk
Presentation: DDT Evaluation with FLACS
In the presentation, Gexcon’s recommendation of DpDx for DDT occurrence along with BakerRisk’s identification of DDT- and deflagration-regime as a function of flame Mach No. and normalized flame travel distance, would be used to evaluate DDT in elongated vapor clouds.
Friday 1st October
11.00 CEST
Jake Connor, Graduate Engineer @ Gexcon
Presentation: Advanced dispersion modelling of hydrogen cyanide in a closed environment
In this case study, as part of the client’s process, Hydrogen Cyanide (HCN) gas is released from plating tanks during normal operation conditions. Previous simplistic modelling carried out by the client estimated a situation that would be intolerable for the personnel in the area considering the high toxicity of HCN at low concentrations. A detailed ventilation and dispersion modelling study was conducted for the area in order to provide more realistic release and dispersion conditions.
14.00 CEST
Gokul Mahajan, Technical Team Lead – Projects @ Gexcon
Presentation: Consequence Modelling of Hazardous Chemicals in Polymer Industries
The FLUG presentation consists of toxic and flammable dispersion, jet fire and explosion scenarios for hazardous chemicals eg styrene, acrylonitrile, butadiene, propylene and vinyl chloride Monomer (VCM) used in the polymer industries. These scenarios were studied in the commercial projects by Gexcon India.
The objectives of the presentation are:
- To present consequences arising from hazardous chemicals used in the Polymer industry
- To demonstrate FLACS-CFD capability providing tangible results for safety analysis
- Learnings for FLACS-CFD new users working in the Polymer or allied industries
Meet the Speakers of the FLUG Week
Chris Coffey
FLACS-CFD Product Manager, Gexcon
Chris is the FLACS-CFD Product Manager at Gexcon. He is responsible for technical and commercial product management of Gexcon’s flagship software product.
Chris holds a Ph.D. in Fluid Dynamics from Imperial College London and an honors degree in Mathematics with Theoretical Physics from University College London. He is a Chartered Mathematician and also holds an MBA from the Open University. He has over ten years’ experience in fluid mechanics and technical safety, working in the academic, defence and industrial sectors. He works across the industry using mathematical and computational modelling to analyse ventilation, dispersion, gas and dust explosions.
Djurre Siccama
Senior Manager, Gexcon
Djurre holds a BSc and MSc in Aerospace Engineering from the Technical University Delft and a BSc in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Leiden. He has been working in the oil and has energy sector for more than 15 years in various roles, including structural engineering, technical safety consultancy and FLACS-CFD product management. During the last two years he has been managing the Gexcon research and software development department.
Shona Mackie
Senior Research Engineer, Gexcon
Shona holds a PhD in Geosciences, awarded by the University of Edinburgh. She has 12 years of experience in research in various fields in academia and industry, which have included developing and analysing large models to predict renewable energy production, to model radiative transfer for Earth observation, to predict and monitor volcanic ash hazards, and to project future climate.
Deiveegan Muthusamy
Principal Research Engineer, Gexcon
Dr. Deiveegan Muthusamy has over 17 years of experience in computational fluid dynamics (CFD), heat transfer and software product development. He is currently working as a General Manager Gexcon Pune / Principal Research Engineer, Gexcon India. He published research articles in numerous international journals like the ASME Journal of Heat Transfer, AIAA Journal of Thermophysics and Heat Transfer, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer. His research covers Fire modelling, Radiative heat transfer, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), Parameter Estimation and Optimization.
Francesco Chillè
Independent Consultant, FCSolutionS
Francesco graduated in Structural Engineering at the Technical University of Milan (Politecnico) in 1989. Since the late 1990s, he has been involved in advanced engineering services for the oil and gas, energy, processes sectors related to gas dispersion and explosion, and structural response against dynamic and impulsive loads.
From 1991 to 2006 he worked within various departments and companies of the ENEL group, dealing with electrical components explosion-related problems and impact on structures, both in research and development projects and consulting studies.
From 2008 to 2015 he has worked closely with Gexcon, leading the Milan office from 2012 to 2015. Since 2015 he has operated as an independent consultant within FCSolutionS.
Sai Mahith Thummaluru
Research Engineer, BASF
Mahith is a graduate engineer with a Master’s degree in Simulation and System Design (M.Eng) from the School of Mechanical Engineering, Hochschule Stralsund, Germany. He is currently working as a research engineer at BASF and has been working with FLACS-CFD since 2019 investigating the influence of parameters in dispersion and pool evaporation as well as delivering industrial projects in the chemicals sector using FLACS-CFD.
Olav Roald Hansen
CEO and founder, HYEX Safety AS
Olav has a physics degree from NTNU and has worked with explosion modelling and FLACS since 1993. In 1990s he was FLACS developer with particular focus on validation against experiments, and made a FLACS training course. In 2000s he was Gexcon R&D Director in charge of FLACS development team and global sale until he started Gexcon US in 2008-2010. From 2012 Olav has worked as consultant for GL (2012-2013) and LR (2014-2020). After starting HYEX Safety June 2020 he has been working full-time with consulting work within hydrogen safety. Model validation and accuracy in CFD predictions have been key focus in his work, and he is author of numerous articles related to FLACS.
Pablo Giacopinelli
Senior Engineer, Gexcon
Pablo is a Senior Engineer and FLACS-CFD technical lead at Gexcon UK, where he has worked for the last 7 years. He has more than 10 years of experience in conducting CFD studies in various industries, including O&G, nuclear, biomass, and civil and aerospace engineering, with a primary focus on modelling the consequences of explosion and fire phenomena, and dispersion hazards such as flammable vapours and toxic exposures. He is an Aeronautical Engineer graduated from the National University of La Plata (Argentina) with postgraduate studies at the University of Manchester (UK).
FENG Yuxiang
Process Engineer, China Classification Society (CCS)
FENG Yuxiang, engineer, graduated from Southwest Petroleum University in 2019 with a major in oil and gas storage and transportation engineering, and then joined the Wuhan Rules and research institute of China Classification Society, and engaged in the research of risk assessment by using FLACS software for two years.
Lorenzo Mauri
Principal Research Engineer, Gexcon
Lorenzo has a background in Environmental Engineering and 15 years’ experience with the development and application of simulation engines in the fields of gas dispersion and consequence analysis. His main research interests include atmospheric flows, multiphase flows, and gas explosions. Lorenzo has extensive experience in software development and scientific programming. He has made substantial contributions to the recent development of FLACS-CFD and associated utilities, including the Ewan and Moodie release model, entraining leaks functionality, modelling of aerodynamic roughness, and others. He has developed FLACS-CFD’s Multiphase Drift Flux solver to simulate droplet vaporization and deposition. In the last 3 years, Lorenzo has authored 4 publications in peer-reviewed journals. He is part of the scientific committee of the International Conference on Hydrogen Safety – 2021. Lorenzo has been working in Gexcon for 7 years developing and using FLACS-CFD for consequence analysis and dispersion modelling.
Jihui Geng
Senior Principal Scientist, BakerRisk
Dr. Geng has over 30 years of experience in testing and simulating reacting flows related to risk assessment for industries where potential or accidental jet leak, dispersion and consequent explosion occur.
Dr. Geng works at BakerRisk’s San Antonio office in the Blast Effects Group, focusing on R&D of 3-D CFD (computational fluid dynamics) code and visualization systems capable of simulating generation and propagation of blast and shock waves and their interaction with structures or buildings. He has also been employing FLACS software to model dispersion and explosion since 2005.
Dr. Geng is the principal author of over 50 conference/symposium papers and 19 journal papers, primarily in the areas of blast wave phenomena originated from VCEs, PVBs, and HEs, and their interaction with structures.
Jake Connor
Graduate Engineer, Gexcon
Jake is a Graduate Engineer with a background in Mechanical Engineering having gained a master’s degree from the University of Liverpool. Jake has been at Gexcon for 18 months and has been involved in a wide range of process safety and risk management projects for facilities ranging from offshore oil and gas installations to airports. Jake has also been using FLACS-CFD extensively since joining the company and has experience in conducting ventilation, dispersion and explosion modelling studies across a variety of industries in order to address client concerns.
Gokul Mahajan
Technical Team Lead – Projects, Gexcon
Gokul has a Master’s degree (M.Tech.) in Chemical Engineering, securing First Rank in the National institute and was awarded Gold Medal. His expertise includes Consequence Modeling using 2D empirical & 3D CFD tools, Process Hazard Analysis (HAZOP, QRA), Air Quality Impact Assessment, and Technical Training. Gokul has a total of 6.5 years of work experience in the field of Process Safety & Operations. He has delivered guest lectures at Indian institutions/universities to share my knowledge in the Safety domain. He has also delivered training on FLACS-EFFECTS and FLACS-CFD modules at UPL Ltd. and National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) respectively. Gokul has been working with FLACS-CFD for the last 3.5 years and has delivered 35+ projects using the software.
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