Numerical calculations for effectiveness verification of an existing active fire protection system installed on a refinery LPG sphere by using moving particle simulation

2022 / Fire safety engineering / Oil&Gas

The purpose of the assignment was to verify the degree of wetting and coverage of the protected surface of an LPG sphere by simulating the existing fire water cooling system installed at the top and equatorial level of the tank. The verification was necessary in order to certify the design and performance of an alternative protection solution, already in place, with respect to the indications of the applicable national and international technical reference standards.

The simulation, conducted by means of an advanced particle calculation code, made it possible to verify the equivalence of performance in the configuration under verification.

For the purpose of preparing the certification documents (CERT-IMP), the static and dynamic analysis of the system’s hydraulics was also carried out using the Pipenet calculation code (Spray-Sprinkler and Transient modules), as well as the verification of the performance in field, for the purpose of comparison with the design data.