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Introduction

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24 views2 pages

Introduction

Uploaded by

Dennis Vieira
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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1.

INTRODUCTION

The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) has been involved


with process safety and loss control for chemical and petrochemical plants for
more than forty years. Through its strong ties with process designers, builders,
operators, safety professionals, and academia, AIChE has enhanced
communication and fostered improvements in the safety standards of the industry.
Its publications and symposia on causes of accidents and methods of prevention
have become information resources for the chemical engineering profession.
Early in 1985, AIChE established the Center for Chemical Process Safety
(CCPS) to serve as a focus for a continuing program for process safety. The first
CCPS project was the publication of a document entitled Guidelines for Hazard
Evaluation Procedures. In 1987, Guidelines for Use of Vapor Cloud Dispersion
Models was published, and in 1989, Guidelines for Chemical Process Quantitative
Risk Analysis and Guidelines for Technical Management of Chemical Process
Safety were published.
The first edition of this book was published in 1994, and it remains the most
in-depth technical material produced in a CCPS project.
This current edition is intended to provide an overview of methods for
practicing engineers to estimate the characteristics of a flash fire, vapor cloud
explosion (VCE), pressure vessel burst (PVB), and boiling-liquid-expanding-
vapor explosion (BLEVEs). This edition summarizes and evaluates these
methods, identifies areas in which information is lacking, and provides an
overview of ongoing work in the field. The arrangement of this book is
considerably different from previous editions, including separating pressure vessel
bursts into its own chapter.
For a person new to the field of explosion and flash fire hazard evaluation this
book provides a starting point for understanding the phenomena covered and
presents methods for calculating the possible consequences of incidents. It
provides an overview of research in the field and numerous references for readers
with more experience. Managers will be able to utilize this book to develop a
basic understanding of the governing phenomena, the calculational methods to
estimate consequences, and the limitations of each method.
Chapter 2 of this book was written for managers, and it contains an overview

1
2 GUIDELINES FOR VCE, PV BURST, BLEVE AND FF HAZARDS

of the hazards associated with flash fires, vapor cloud explosions (VCEs),
pressure vessel bursts (PVBs), and boiling liquid expanding vapor explosions
(BLEVEs). Chapter 3 provides a review of case histories involving these hazards.
These case histories illustrate the conditions present at the time of the event,
highlighting the serious consequences of such events and the need for evaluation
of the hazards.
Chapter 4 provides an overview of the basic concepts associated with flash
fires, VCEs, PVBs and BLEVEs. This chapter includes a discussion of
dispersion, ignition, fires, thermal radiation, VCEs, and blast waves.
Chapters 5 through 8 separately address the phenomena of each type of hazard
(i.e., flash fires, VCEs, PVBs and BLEVEs). These chapters include a description
of the relevant phenomena, an overview of the related past and present
experimental work and theoretical research, and selected consequence estimation
methodologies. Each chapter includes sample problems to illustrate application of
the methodologies presented. References are provided in Chapter 9.
The goal of this book is to provide the reader with an adequate understanding
of the basic physical principles of flash fires and explosions and the current state
of the art in hazard estimation methodologies. It is not the goal of this book to
provide a comprehensive discussion of all of the experimental work and
theoretical research that has been performed in the field of flash fire and explosion
evaluation.
This book does not address subjects such as toxic effects, confined explosions
(e.g., an explosion within a building), dust explosions, runaway reactions,
condensed-phase explosions, pool fires, jet flames, or structural responses of
buildings. Furthermore, no attempt is made to address frequency or likelihood of
accident scenarios. References to other works related to these topics are provided
for the interested reader.

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