I. CHEM. E. SYMPOSIUM SERIES NO.

85

FIRE SURVIVAL OF PROCESS VESSELS CONTAINING GAS

J. Nylund *

The present work is a theoretical evaluation of the ability

of process vessels to survive hydrocarbon fires when the
vessels are designed and equipped with pressure relief
valves and depressuring valves according to current codes
and standards.
Acceptable delay times for depressurization
activation after a hydrocarbon fire has ensued are established for normal and controlled depressurization techniques. A relationship between impinging hydrocarbon
jet size and the time period to plastic instability and
subsequent rupture is established.

INTRODUCTION
Local jet and pool fires can develop into major catastrophies if not
controlled at an early stage.
Loss of structural integrity and containment
can accelerate the development of such accidents.
Rupture of process vessels can develop into fire-balls with high damage
potential.
To control these risks process vessels are designed according to codes and
standards.
These codes and standards have their basis in certain
philosophies which are expressed through design equations.
To be useful
these design equations have to be rather simple.
In the present study the
adequacy of such simple equations is investigated through more rigorous
analyses.
A process vessel is designed and equipped according to recognized codes and
subjected to fire loads.
Failure criteria are proposed, and the ability of the process vessel to
survive the chosen fires scenarios is investigated.

* Det norske VERITAS, N1322 - Hoevik, Norway

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PROCESS

Process

VESSEL/VALVE

DESIGN

Vessel

The process vessel in this study has been designed according to BS5500, /1/.
The proposed failure criteria require data for the effect of increased
material temperature (Tm) on Youngs modulus (E) and the yield strength (oy).

Pressure Relief Valves

The pressure relief valve is designed for fire relief according to API /2/.
The fire load is 50% and 100% of the vessel exposed to fire.
Depressuring Valve
The valve for normal depressuring is designed according to a simplified
method by Grote /3/. According
to this method the throat area of the
depressuring valve can be calculated from the equation

Paruit and Kimmel /4/ have proposed a method for controlled depressuring.
The benefit of this method is according to the authors to obtain a constant
mass flow throughout the 15 minutes depressuring and in this way reduce the
maximum relief amounts
to the flare stack.
For the subject vessel the constant mass rate is found to be 4.724 kg/s.
Table 1 shows the data for the process vessel, the pressure relief valves and
the depressuring valve.
TABLE

Process vessel diameter

Total length of vessel
Vessel shell thickness
Yield strength of vessel material (API-5LX-60)
Design stress at 90 centigrades
Design pressure (max. allowable working pressure)
Working pressure
Working temperature
Relief valve fire relief set pressure
Discharge coefficient
Throat area at 50% fire exposure
Throat area at 100% fire exposure
Depressuring valve
Throat area

discharge

coefficient

138

3.0 m
13.0 m
53.0 mm
420 N/mm2
245 N/mm2
8.28 MPa
8.2 MPa
300 K
10.0 MPa
0.975
2.016 . 104m2
4.031 . 104m2
0.74
1.153 . 10-3m2

I. CHEM. E. SYMPOSIUM SERIES NO. 85

PROCESS ANALYSIS TOOLS

To analyse the process vessel with pressure relief and depressuring valves
when exposed to fire loads, the computer program BLOW-DOWN /5/ has been used.
This is a modular computer program for analysis of hydrocarbon gas flow. The
progam is capable of handling real hydrocarbon mixtures, but in this study
pure methane gas has been applied.
Process Vessel
The element program VESSEL solves the 1st Law of Thermodynamics for gas in the
vessel and the vessel shell. External convection and radiation heat transfer
are accounted for as well as internal convection and radiation. Heat transfer
coefficients are continuously updated throughout the calculations.
Valves
The element program VALVE analyse the flow through the pressure relief and the
depressuring valves. The element is adiabatic and is capable of handling both
sonic and sub-sonic flow.
Vessel Failure Criteria
The proposed failure criterion for local jet fires impinging on a pressure
vessel is an application of the work performed at Battelle's Columbus
Laboratories regarding defects in pressurized pipes and vessels.
According to Kiefner et al /6/ the stress concentration factor due to a
longitudinal through-wall flaw in a vessel can be expressed as

Stress concentration factor due to surface flaws can be expressed in terms of

MT and the flaw depth - shell thickness ratio
(/t):

Rupture of the vessel takes place when the hoop stress concentration ( Ms)
reaches the flow stress which accounts for strain-hardening and can be
expressed as yield strength plus a constant.
This criterion applies to ductile materials and also surface flaws due to
corrosion. In such cases parabolic shape of the defect (s = 2/3) can be used
up to (
) = 4.5 over which rectangular shape (s = 1) has to be used.
In case of a local jet fire, the heat affected material loses its ability to
carry loads, and a situation similar to a surface flaw exists. The equivalent
(/t) ratio, as seen from the unheated surrounding material, can be expressed
as

where Eo denotes the Youngs Modulus for the unheated material.

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By use of Equations (4) through (6) and the effective jet fire diameter as
surface flaw length, the failure pressure as function of time can be
calculated.
Strain-hardening is disregarded to account for some heat
conduction along the vessel shell.
Above a certain size a surface flaw has to be considered global and the flaw
depth as general thickness reduction.
Brakestad and Wiik /7/ suggest that
surface flaws where (
)> 8 are to be taken as global surface flaws.
Global failure criterion occur when the vessel shell is fully plastified.
In case of global fires the failure criterion can be expressed as:

The pressure above which the vessel is rupturing, the failure pressure, is
calculated in element program TEMP, which also calculates the temperatures
through the vessel shell.
FIRE SCENARIOS
The fire scenarios considered are jet fires of various size impinging on the
side of the process vessel and a pool fire totally engulfing the process
vessel. Both scenarios have relevance to offshore and onshore industry.
The effective jet fire diameter DJ is used in this study to account for
several types of jets. The diameter of the undisturbed jet will heavily
depend on whether the jet is burning before it hits the vessel or not, and
whether the jet is underexpanded or not.
The flame temperature is taken to be 1500 K for both the jet and the pool
fires.
The connective heat transfer coefficient in case of impinging jets is taken
to be 250 W/m2K. Wesson /8/ recommends 28 W/m K as convective heat transfer
coefficient for pool fires.
FIRE RELIEF
Jet Fires
Figure 1 through 4 show the results from the analyses of the process vessel
subjected to fire jets of varying effective diameter DJ.
For DJ = 1 m (Fig.1) we see that the pressure pv and the temperature Tg in the
vessel increase just slightly since the fire exposed area is relatively small.
The failure pressure pf is above the vessel pressure throughout the 15 minute
period and no vessel rupture will thus occur.
For effective fire jet diameters 2 and 3 meters, Figs. 2 and 3, we see that
the vessel pressure increase more with time, and that the vessel ruptures
after about 7.5 and 6.5 minutes respectively.
Figure 4 shows that the vessel will rupture after about 4.5 minutes when the
vessel is subjected to a jet fire of effective diameter 4 meter. The fire
jet in this case is so large that the failure criterion for global fires is
used.

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Common for the results shown for DJ = 2, 3 and 4 meters is that the pressure
relief valve represents no protection for the vessel since rupture occurs at
pressures far below the set pressure.
Pool Fires
In case the process vessel is fully engulfed in a fire, the vessel pressure
increase much quicker than in case of local jet fires.
Figure 5 shows the
pressure in the process vessel for the cases when the pressure relief valve is
not working, designed for 50% fire exposure (pvr50%), and designed for 100%
fire exposure (pvr100%).
If we for a moment disregard the structural strength of the vessel, we see that
the pressure relief valve designed for 100% fire exposure has too little
capacity to maintain to maintain the vessel pressure at 10 MPa. However, the
vessel pressure exceeds the failure pressure after about 5 minutes, and a
slightly higher relief valve capacity would not change this. From the figure
we see that the pressure relief valve does not represent any protection of the
vessel, and that the vessel would rupture less than one minute earlier if no
pressure relief valve were fitted.
FIRE DEPRESSURING
According to the API code (2) the process vessel is to be depressurized down
to 0.79 MPa within 15 minutes. In the literature there has been a tendency
of focusing on the depressuring time, while the underlaying philosophy is that
the vessel pressure has to be reduced quicker than the loss in mechanical
strength due to increased shell temperature.
Neither Grote /3/ nor Paruit and Kimmel /4/ take into account the fire
situation, and the ability of their approach to cope with "cold" depressuring
and depressuring in presence of fire is analysed.
Normal Depressuring
Figure 6 shows the results from normal depressuring from the working pressure
in cold conditions through the depressuring valve designed according to Grote
/3/ and shown in Table 1.
The vessel pressure decreases nicely to below 0.79
MPa within 15 minutes.
The mass flow rate m decreases from initial 12.9 kg/s
to 1.2 kg/s after 15 minutes.
Figure 7 shows the depressuring from the same working pressure, but in a totally
engulfed fire condition. Initially the vessel pressure drops as in cold
conditions, but due to the heat input, not as fast.
The final vessel pressure
after 15 minutes is above 0.79 MPa, but safely below the failure pressure
throughout all the depressuring period.
Depressuring valves designed
according to Grote /3/ is thus capable of safe depressuring of a vessel when
the start pressure is the working pressure.
In Figure 5 we saw that vessel rupture occurred after about 5 minutes and that
the vessel pressure at that instant was 10.2 MPa. We would like to investigate
if a 5 minutes delayed depressuring could protect the vessel.
Figure 8 shows
this situation where pyd denotes the vessel pressure after the delayed depressuring. We see that the vessel pressure during depressuring is kept below
the failure pressure pf and can conclude that up to 5 minutes delayed depressuring can be acceptable without vessel failure to occur.

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Controlled Depressuring
The depressuring control system proposed by Paruit and Kimmel /4/ to obtain
constant mass rate during depressuring is shown in Figure 9. The depressuring
takes place through a restriction orifice RO and a pressure control valve PCV
in parallel.
The PCV is controlled by a pressure indicator controller PIC
sensing the flare header backpressure.
At start of the depressuring the PCV
is closed and the PCV flow area is increased during depressuring so that the
flare header backpressure is kept constant.
We have assumed that a controlled depressuring system which maintain constant
mass rate is fitted to the subject vessel and cold depressuring from working
pressure is performed.
Figure 10 shows that constant mass rate 4.724 kg/s
results in pressure decrease nicely to below 0.79 MPa within 15 minutes.
The same vessel but totally engulfed in fire is shown in Figure 11. We see
that a constant mass rate 4.724 kg/s is not sufficient to keep the vessel
pressure below the failure pressure.
The vessel will thus rupture about 7
minutes after the depressuring has started, and controlled depressuring method
maintaining constant mass rate is thus not an acceptable protection method for
the subject vessel.
It is evident that delayed depressuring will not work
either.
The depressuring control system in Figure 9 maintains the flare header
pressure drop constant, but the gas temperature, and thus the gas density will
be sensitive to whether the vessel is exposed to fire or not.
To check the
ability of the depressuring control system a simplified analysis of the flare
header is performed.
The pressure in the flare header is rather low, and we assume that the pressure
drop is mainly due to friction and that the D'Arcy equation can be applied.

D'Arcy friction factor can be expressed as

Equations (8) and (9) and the continuity equation give that the mass rate in
case of constant flare header backpressure can be expressed as

A typical flare header backpressure 0.15 MPa is applied, and controlled depressuring in cold conditions and under total fire engulfment are analysed.
With initial mass rate 4.724 kg/s the change in mass rates is shown in Figure
12. We see that the proposed depressuring control system will increase the
mass rate during cold depressuring when the flare header backpressure is kept
constant. This is mainly due to the gas temperature which decrease from
initially minus 9 centigrades (264K) to minus 121 centigrades (152K) downstream the depressuring control system and thus increase the gas density.
Relative to Figure 10 the pressure drops
to below 0.79 MPa after about 13
minutes.
In case of total fire engulfment we see from Figure 12 that the mass rate is
reduced from initially 4.724 kg/s to less than half this value at the end of
the depressuring. The gas temperature downstream the depressuring control

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system does in this case increase from initially minus 9 centigrades (264K),
as for the cold depressuring, to plus 646 centigrades (919K) which will reduce
the gas density.
The time to vessel rupture will be just slightly shorter
than shown in Figure 10.
CONCLUSION
The results from the analyses performed in this study can be summarized as
follows.
A process vessel subjected to fire can rupture as early as 4 to 5 minutes
after the start of the fire. Both the jet fire (Figure 4) and the pool fire
(Figure 5) give the same result.
Common for these two fire scenarios is also
that the pressure relief valve provides no real protection of the process
vessel.
Normal depressuring technique as represented by Grote provides a real protection of the pressure vessel when activated within 4-5 minutes after start
of the fire.
This applies to both jet fires and pool fires.
Controlled depressuring technique based on constant mass flow rate or constant
flare header backpressure throughout the depressuring time provides no real
protection in fire conditions when fitted to a single gas process vessel.
It should be stressed, however, that the results from this study are not
universal, and other conditions may call for specific analysis.

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NOMENCLATURE
AD

depressuring valve

proportionality

cross

section area

constant

cD

discharge

vessel

coefficient

DJ

effective jet fire diameter

flare header diameter

diameter

Youngs

D'Arcy friction factor

modulus

flaw

length

length

along vessels

axis

MS

surface

MT

through-wall stress concentration

mass flow rate

Pf

vessel failure pressure

pv

vessel pressure

Pvr

vessel pressure at relief

of flare header
flaw

stress

concentration

Pvd

vessel pressure at depressuring

P1

vessel pressure before depressuring

P2

vessel pressure after depressuring

flare header pressure drop

Re

Reynolds number

surface flaw shape factor

Tg

gas temperature

Tm

vessel shell temperature

vessel shell thickness

gas velocity

vessel volume

gas compressibility

flaw depth

yield strength

hoop stress

depressuring time

gas density

gas dynamic viscosity

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REFERENCES
1.

British Standard 5500

"Specification for Unfired Fusion Welded Pressure Vessels"

2.

API RP 520 I & II

"Recommended Practice for
the Design and Installation of
Pressure-Relieving Systems in Refineries"
American Petroleum Institute

3.

Grote, S.H.:
"Calculating Pressure Release Times"
Chemical Engineering
July 17, 1967

4.

Paruit, B. and Kimmel, W.:

"Control Slowdown to the Flare"
Hydrocarbon Processing
October 1979

5.

Nylund, J.:
"Element Program System BLOW-DOWN
General Description"
Det norske VERITAS

6.

Kiefner, J.F., Maxey, W.A., Eiber., R.J. and Duffy, A.R.:

"Failure Stress Levels of Flaws in Pressurized Cylinders"
Progress in Flaw Growth and Facture Toughness Testing,
ASTM STP 536
American Society for Testing and Materials
1973,
pp
461-481

7.

Brakestad,
H.
and Wiik,
T.:
"Riser Rupture, Causes and consequences Part report II:
The Influence of surface flaws on the strength of pressurized
steel pipes"
VERITAS Report No.79-0303

8.

Wesson,
H.R.:
"Considerations Relating to Fire
Requirements
for LNG Plants"

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