Vapor Cloud Explosion Live Test and Data Analysis Development Program
Abstract
Vapor Cloud Explosions (VCE), an ever-present threat to the petroleum refining industry, create hazards to employees, equipment and production capabilities. To mitigate the effect of these hazards, effective designs for structural and non-structural components must be developed and confirmed via experimental validation to ensure the safety and performance of the facility and its occupants. Current methodologies for full-scale VCE performance testing involve the use of large quantities of high explosives set at a large standoff distance to achieve the time durations common in VCE events. While effective in achieving the peak pressures involved, these tests do not adequately characterize the full behavior of the time-dependent loading conditions and other effects seen in VCE events, such as enhanced turbulence, degree of confinement and the reactivity of unburned materials. The explosive testing community recognizes that current testing methods do not fully characterize the loading behavior and that only a small number of large- scale VCE tests have been conducted by various commercial and government agencies. Unfortunately, most of the work has been in support of counterterrorism efforts, making the test data unavailable to the petroleum industry.
Description
PresentationSubject
vapor cloud explosionCollections
Citation
Williams, Brian; Hardesty, Scott; Graham, Polly; Shepherd, Joseph; Hegemier, Gil; Mannan, M. Sam; Mangold, Allan; Durant, Brad; Yen, Joseph; Duell, Ed; Connor, Chris (2015). Vapor Cloud Explosion Live Test and Data Analysis Development Program. Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center; Texas &M University. Libraries. Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /193757.