Risk assessment of offshore fire accidents caused by subsea gas release
Xinhong Li (Dalian University of Technology, Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology)
Faisal Khan (Memorial University of Newfoundland)
Ming Yang (TU Delft - Safety and Security Science, TU Delft - Technology, Policy and Management)
Chao Chen (TU Delft - Safety and Security Science)
Guoming Chen (China University of Petroleum (East China))
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Abstract
Subsea gas release is an industrial hazard that can impose fire hazards on offshore facilities near the gas surfacing area. However, risk assessment of the fire caused by subsea gas release is challenged due to inadequate recognition of the knowledge of subsea gas release mechanism and resulting hazards. At present, minimal researches involving risk assessment of offshore fire resulting from a subsea gas release were reported, and this paper is an extension of the previous works on subsea gas behavior. This paper focuses on modeling fire risk on offshore facilities due to subsea gas release. A numerical simulation is carried out using the Computational Fluid Dynamic technique of Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) to analyze fire propagation characteristics and assess the impact of fire on personnel and assets. A probit model is adopted to calculate the probabilities of injury or death caused by fire hazards. This study also investigates the effect of wind speed, gas release rate and the distance between gas pool and platform on fire impacts and casualty probabilities. The present study can support safety measure design to mitigate or avoid the impacts of offshore fire events from subsea gas release.