Hazard analysis on LPG fireball of road tanker BLEVE based on CFD simulation

Abstract In order to research the hydrocarbon fireball characteristic of LPG tanker Boiled Liquid Evaporate Vapor Explosion (BLEVE) under different conditions, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations of the hydrocarbon fireballs from the LPG tanker BLEVE accidents were carried out. Several new different factors, such as the mass of fuel, inlet velocity and airflow velocity, were considered to analyze the influence on the evolution of the characteristics of the fireball and the development of the LPG tanker BLEVE accidents. Results indicate that the fireball with a greater mass of fuel radiates more heat but slower. The large longitudinal diameter of the fireball and high radiation heat flux are observed in case of a faster inlet velocity used for the same mass. The airflow was found to shorten the initial phase of the fireball effectively. Some suggestions were proposed to prevent the LPG BLEVE accidents. Analysis performed show that various parameters like fireball diameter, radiative heat flux and lifting speed of fireball can be predicted well using FDS code.