• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.90-95
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• 2011

On April 20, 2010, a well control event allowed hydrocarbon (oil and gas) to escape from the Macondo well onto Deepwater Horizon (DWH), resulting in an exploration and fire on the rig. While 17 people were injured, 11 others lost their lives. The fire continued for 36 hours until the rig sank. Hydrocarbons continued to flow out from the reservoir through the well bore and blowout preventer (BOP) for 87 days, causing an unprecedented oil spill. Beyond Petroleum (BP) and the US federal government tried various methods to prevent the oil spill and to capture the spilled oil. The corresponding responses were very challenging due to the scale, intensity, and duration of the incident that occurred under extreme conditions in terms of pressure, temperature, and amount of flow. On July 15, a capping stack, which is another BOP on top of the existing BOP, was successfully installed, and the oil spill was stopped. After several tests and subsea responses, the well was permanently sealed by a relief well and a bottom kill on September 19. This paper analyzes the subsea responses and engineering efforts to capture the oil, stop the leaking, and kill the subsea well. During the investigation and analysis of subsea responses, information was collected and data bases were established for future accident prevention and the development of subsea engineering.

• Architectural research
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.151-158
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• 2013

Offshore oil and gas process plants are exposed to hazardous accidents such as explosion and fire, so that the structural components should resist such accidental loads. Given the possibilities of thousands of different scenarios for the occurrence of an accidental hazard, the best way to predict a reasonable size of a specific accidental load would be the employment of a probabilistic approach. Having the fact that a specific procedure for probabilistic accidental hazard analysis has not yet been established especially for explosion and fire hazards, it is widely accepted that engineers usually take simple and conservative figures in assuming uncertainties inherent in the procedure, resulting either in underestimation or more likely in overestimation in the topside structural design for offshore plants. The variation in the results of a probabilistic approach is determined by the assumptions accepted in the procedures of explosion probability computation, explosion analysis, and structural analysis. A design overpressure load for a sample offshore plant is determined according to the proposed probabilistic approach in this study. CFD analysis results using a Flame Acceleration Simulator, FLACS_v9.1, are utilized to create an overpressure hazard curve. Moreover, the negative impulse and frequency contents of a blast wave are considerably influencing structural responses, but those are completely ignored in a widely used triangular form of blast wave. An idealistic blast wave profile deploying both negative and positive pulses is proposed in this study. A topside process module and piperack with blast wall are 3D FE modeled for structural analysis using LS-DYNA. Three different types of blast wave profiles are applied, two of typical triangular forms having different impulse and the proposed load profile. In conclusion, it is found that a typical triangular blast load leads to overestimation in structural design.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.1-8
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• 2016

Safety management in hazardous areas with potentially explosive gas atmospheres (here in after referred to as hazardous areas) in large scale facilities dealing with combustible or flammable materials at home and abroad is very important (significant) for the coexistence of the company and local society based on business continuity management (BCM) and reliance. For the safety management in hazardous areas, two systems are mainly used: (1) the control system for the prevention of combustible or flammable substances and (2) the explosion proof system for the elimination of ignition sources when flammable gases are leaked to inhibit the transition to fire or explosion accidents. While technology and regulations on explosion proof facilities or devices for electrical ignition sources are well developed and defined, those for thermal ignition sources need to be more developed and established. In this study, the internal combustion engine in hazardous areas was investigated to determine the risk of ignition. For this purpose, document searches were conducted on the relevant international standards and accidents cases and risk analysis reports. In addition, this study assessed the application cases of the diesel engine's safety equipment, such as spark arresters regarding the site of process safety management (PSM) system in central Korea. To practically apply these results to the hydrocarbon industry, the safety management method for explosion prevention in hazardous areas was provided by risk identification for ignition sources of internal combustion engines, such as diesel engines.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers
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• v.19 no.7
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• pp.1702-1708
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• 1995

Owing to the serious problem of hydrocarbon fuel such as environmental pollution, the development of alternative fuel is very urgent. To adopt hydrogen to the internal combustion engine, a solenoid-drive type in-cylinder injection system was constructed. The injection system was installed to the single cylinder research engine, and the engine performance and the emission of citric oxide were tested upon the fuel-air equivalence ratio and the spark timing. In the case of in-cylinder injection system, hydrogen is injected after the intake valve is close, so it is possible to operate the engine without the back fire and the fall of its volumetric efficiency. In the region of the fuel-air equivalence ratio below 0.5, hydrogen and air aren't well mixed and the thermal efficiency is lowered, so the nozzle should be designed to inject hydrogen uniformly into the combustion chamber. In the region of the fuel-air equivalence ratio above 0.7,the fuel-air mixture burns very fast and the amount of citric oxide emission increases rapidly, so the spark timing should be retarded as compared with MBT.

• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.55 no.3
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• pp.222-235
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• 2018

The hydrocarbon gas leak in the offshore plant can cause large accidents and lead to significant damages to human, property and environment. For prevention of fire or explosion accidents from gas leak, a SIS(Safety Instrumented System) should be installed. In the early stage of the offshore design, required SIL(Safety Integrated Level) is determined and reliability analysis is performed to verify the design in reliability aspects. This study collected data, information related to reliability analysis and created knowledge model of safety design for the offshore system with MBSE(Model-Based Systems Engineering) concept. Knowledge model could support safety engineer's design tasks as the guidance of reliability analysis procedure of safety design and make good conversation with other engineers in yard, class, company, etc.

• Clean Technology
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.161-167
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• 2020

For the design of the prevention and mitigation measures in process industries involving flammable substances, reliable safety data are required. An important property used to estimate the risk of fire and explosion for a flammable liquid is the flash point. Flammability is an important factor to consider when developing safe methods for storing and handling solids and liquids. In this study, the flash point data were measured for the binary systems {2-butanol + 2,2,4-trimethylpentane}, {2-butanol + methylcyclohexane} and {2-butanol + toluene} at 101.3 kPa. Experiments were performed according to the standard test method (ASTM D 3278) using a Stanhope-Seta closed cup flash point tester. A minimum flash point behavior was observed in the binary systems as in the many cases for the hydrocarbon and alcohol mixture that were observed. The measured flash points were compared with the predicted values calculated via the following activity coefficient (GE) models: Wilson, Non-Random Two-Liquid (NRTL), and UNIversal QUAsiChemical (UNIQUAC) models. The predicted data were only adequate for the data determined by the closed-cup test method and may not be appropriate for the data obtained from the open-cup test method because of its deviation from the vapor liquid equilibrium. The predicted results of this work can be used to design safe petrochemical processes, such as the identification of safe storage conditions for non-ideal solutions containing flammable components.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.616-620
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• 2013

In this work, the combustive properties of the swine manure, poultry manure, and mixtures based on the resource recycling-energy were investigated. After the specimens were dried to a constant weight by dry oven, combustive properties were tested by the cone calorimeter (ISO 5660-1). It was found that the peak effective heat of combustion (PEHC) in the swine manure (78.72 MJ/kg) has risen due to more amount of the hydrocabon compared with poultry manure (69.41 MJ/kg), also the swine manure increased both of the higher $CO_2$ production rate (0.1959 g/s) and total smoke release rate (THRR) ($419m^2/m^2$) than those of the poultry manure. However, both of the CO production release (0.0996 kg/kg) and CO production rate (0034 g/s) in the poultry manure increased due to more amount of the inorganic contents compared with swine manure. Thus, the high combustion energy is expected to generate depend on the hydrocarbon content.

• Clean Technology
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.140-146
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• 2019

Flammable substances, such as organic solvents, are commonly used in laboratories and industrial processes. The flash point of flammable liquid mixtures is a very important parameter for characterizing the ignition and explosion hazards, and the flash points of mixtures of $C_2{\sim}C_3$ alcohols and 2,2,4-trimethylpentane were measured in the present study. The 2,2,4-trimethylpentane is an important component of gasoline and is frequently used in the petroleum industry as a solvent. Lower flash point data were measured for the binary systems {ethanol + 2,2,4-trimethylpentane}, {1-propanol + 2,2,4-trimethylpentane}, and {2-propanol + 2,2,4-trimethylpentane}. The flash point measurements were carried out according to the standard test method (ASTM D3278) using a Stanhope-Seta closed cup flash point tester. The measured flash points were compared with the predicted values calculated using Raoult's law and also following $G^E$ models: Wilson, Non-Random Two Liquid (NRTL) and UNIversal QUAsiChemical (UNIQUAC). These models were able to predict the experimental flash points for different compositions of {$C_2{\sim}C_3$ alcohols + 2,2,4-trimethylpentane} mixtures with minimal deviations. The average absolute deviation between the predicted and measured lower flash point was less than 1.28 K. A minimum flash point behaviour was observed in all of the systems as in the many observed cases for the hydrocarbon and alcohol mixtures.