• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.39-45
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• 2018

The occupational safety and health act defines how to evaluate the explosion hazardous areas according to KS (Korean Industrial Standards). Current KS have to follow IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) 60079-10-1 1st edition and there has been no change since 2008. And its 2nd edition has been revised in 2015. In this study, IEC 1st Ed. (IEC 60079-10-1 1st edition) is compared with IEC 2nd edition. Total 112 case studies including four materials (methane, propane, benzene, methanol) are selected to test and explosion hazardous ranges evaluated by IEC 1st and 2nd Ed. are analyzed according to various leakage pressures and hole sizes. In order to verify the results calculated by them, PHAST, which is one of the most representative consequence analysis programs, is employed. As a result, it can be concluded that there are many differences between IEC 1st and 2nd Ed. due to the discharge and the ventilation parameters. As comparing with PHAST, it is confirmed that IEC 1st provides more conservative values than PHAST. Even if IEC 2nd Ed. provides more conservative for gases, this fails to provide more conservative values for liquids. Therefore, it is worth to note that a large value between the explosion hazardous ranges value calculated by the IEC 1st Ed. and 2nd Ed. should be selected until further investigation and analysis is made. Morevover, the full consideration for IEC 2nd Ed. have to be needed.

• Explosives and Blasting
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.19-32
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• 2022

Hydrogen is a fuel having the highest energy compared with other common fuels. This means hydrogen is a clean energy source for the future. However, using hydrogen as a fuel has implication regarding carrier and storage issues, as hydrogen is highly inflammable and unstable gas susceptible to explosion. Explosions resulting from hydrogen-air mixtures have already been encountered and well documented in research experiments. However, there are still large gaps in this research field as the use of numerical tools and field experiments are required to fully understand the safety measures necessary to prevent hydrogen explosions. The purpose of this present study is to develop and simulate 3D numerical modelling of an existing hydrogen gas station in Jeonju by using handheld LiDAR and Ansys AUTODYN, as well as the processing of point cloud scans and use of cloud dataset to develop FEM 3D meshed model for the numerical simulation to predict peak-over pressures. The results show that the Lidar scanning technique combined with the ANSYS AUTODYN can help to determine the safety distance and as well as construct, simulate and predict the peak over-pressures for hydrogen refueling station explosions.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.39-45
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• 2013

This study analyzes the explosion hazard of dry cleaning solvent recovery machine in laundry shop in two aspects, i.e. combustible and ignition source, and determines the explosive conditions of this machine by conducting mockup explosion tests repeatedly, varying conditions and using real dry cleaning solvent recovery machines. As to combustibles, two kinds of combustibles used widely in Korea have been selected and tested. The flash points, LEL's, and saturation vapor pressures of those combustibles have been measured, and their explosion specific curves have been drawn, based on the results of the measurements, so that the explosion risks of those materials may be determined, depending on the temperatures. Potential voltages generated from materials for laundry and foreign materials of metals have been assumed to be the ignition sources in this application, and their potential voltages have been measured, depending on temperature, humidity, and antistatic agent, by using real materials for laundry and a potential voltage measuring device. Tests have been conducted, varying the quantities, concentrations, and operating temperatures of materials for laundry. As a result, explosions have not been generated with potential voltages of materials for laundry, but explosions have been observed when applying artificial spark energy of 2.0 mJ.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.33 no.9
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• pp.682-687
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• 2009

In order to investigate the effects of three different electrostatic discharge energies on gas explosions, a high-speed PIV system has been applied. The present study paid attention to the flame initiation by the gas explosions and its propagation at the existence of an obstacle within a chamber. Three different ignition energies such as 0.56 mJ, 52.87 mJ and 112.5 mJ were used. It is found that the ignition kernel is bent by the electrostatic discharge during the flame initiation. Tangential velocities of unburnt mixture ahead of initially propagating flame fronts are increased with increasing ignition energy, which makes the flame propagation faster before it reaches the obstacle. Although the flame speed was found to be less sensitive to the ignition energies, the flame developments were different. The effects of the energies on explosion pressures were also discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.65-70
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• 2023

Flammable materials used in semiconductor supply facilities are manufactured at high temperatures and high pressures, and as the semiconductor industry becomes more sophisticated and larger, the amount of materials used is rapidly increasing. Recently, fires and explosions occurred during the handling of acetic acid, which is a raw material for making products in the semiconductor material manufacturing process. Overall problems such as lack of air inflow prevention for fire and explosion prevention were identified. Therefore, in this study, in order to accurately identify the cause of the accident and prevent fire and explosion that may occur in the process of handling large amounts of flammable liquids, opinions from various perspectives, such as construction of facilities such as hoppers, installation of AOPS components, and change in workers' perceptions would like to present.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.2069-2087
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• 2023

In nuclear power plant (NPP) accidents, the containment is subject to high temperatures and high internal pressures, which may further trigger serious chain accidents such as core meltdown and hydrogen explosion, resulting in a significantly higher accident level. Therefore, studying the mechanical performance of a containment under high temperature and high internal pressure is relevant to the safety of NPPs. Based on similarity principles, the 1:3.2 scale model of a prestressed concrete containment vessel (PCCV) of a NPP was designed. The loading method, which considers the thermal-pressure coupling conditions, was used. The mechanical response of the PCCV was investigated with a simultaneous increase in internal pressure and temperature, and the failure mechanism of the PCCV under thermal-pressure coupling conditions was revealed.

• Explosives and Blasting
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.1-12
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• 2011

Progressive collapse analyses of high-rise buildings subjected to abnormal loading such as fires, impacts, earthquakes, typhoon, bomb blasts etc. are intended. However it is difficult to perform collapse experiments of the real scale building to determine the capacity of the structure under an extreme loading events. In this study, collapse behavior of a 15 story RC structure building loaded by external explosion pressures were simulated using Extreme Loading Structures (ELS) software. The standoff distance between the RC building and explosives of 1500 kg was 1, 2, 5, 10, and 15 meters. The explosive demolition analysis techniques based on removal of partial support structures following blast scenario was adapted to investigate the transition process of progressive collapse-local damage.

• Korean System Dynamics Review
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.5-29
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• 2015

The importance of the concept of safety culture has increased in the security of high-risk facility after Chernobyl accident in 1986. This paper elaborated the concept of safety culture and its main factors by Causal Loop Diagram. Due to the decline of safety culture, the occurrence of incidents and accidents require more and more corrective actions to the members of high-risk facilities and thereby increasing their workloads. Employees who must complete the task within the given time have to have time pressures and don't comply with the rules and procedures. Also, a schedule pressure is a big stress for employees, causing mistakes in precision work. In order to improve these problems, CLD of the safety culture in this paper suggests hiring more workers, re-allocation of given workloads and strengthen the learning, communication capabilities and safety leadership. In addition, the two real accident cases were analyzed to test the feasibility of the System Dynamic simulation model through the process of structuring the fault trees on the stationary black out accident in Kori unit 1 in South Korea and Kleen Energy power station explosion in US. The simulation results show that the various safety factors cause the serious accident combined with mechanical failure and safety culture will reduce the possibility of the accidents in these high-risk organizations. This simulation model can contribute to analyzing the impact of the organizational and human factors of safety culture and can provide the alternatives in high-risk facilities.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.187-195
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• 2015

The gas explosions in offshore installations are known to be very severe according to its geometry and environmental conditions such as leak locations and wind directions, and a dynamic response of structures due to blast loads depends on the load profile. Therefore, a parametric study has to be conducted to investigate the effects of the dynamic response of structural members subjected to various types of load shapes. To do so, a series of CFD analyses was performed using a full-scale FPSO topside model including detail parts of pipes and equipments, and the time history data of the blast loads at monitor points and panels were obtained by the analyses. In this paper, we focus on a structural dynamic response subjected to blast loads changing the magnitude of positive/negative phase pressure and time duration. From the results of linear/nonlinear transient analyses using single degree of freedom(SDOF) and multi-degree-of freedom(MDOF) systems, it was observed that dynamic responses of structures were significantly influenced by the magnitude of positive and negative phase pressures and negative time duration.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.293-298
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• 2015

A safety vent is crucial to protect its user from unpredictable explosions caused by increasing internal pressure of the lithium-ion batteries. In order to prevent the explosion of the battery, a safety vent rupture is required when the internal pressure reaches a critical value. In conventional manufacturing, the cap plate and the safety vent are fabricated separately and subsequently welded to each other. In the current study, a manufacturing process including a backward extrusion and coining process is suggested to produce an integral safety vent which also has the benefit of increasing production efficiency. FE simulations were conducted to predict the rupture pressure and to design the safety vent using a ductile fracture criterion and the element deletion method. The critical value, C, in the ductile fracture criterion was obtained from uniaxial tensile tests with an annealed sheet of 1050-H14 aluminum alloy. Rupture tests were preformed to measure the rupture pressure of the safety vent. The results met the required rupture pressure within 8.5±0.5 kgf/cm². The simulation results were compared with experimental results, which showed that the predicted rupture pressures are in good agreement with experimentally measured ones with a maximum error of only 3.9%.