Dynamic Analysis of Multiple Fire Domino Effects for Better Environmental Safety and Health Management

Abstract

Fire is a major hazard which frequently occurs in any flammable chemical processing industry leading to severe injuries, fatalities and environmental pollution. Fire induced domino accidents are of serious concern since its escalation to multiple target equipment results in more severe multiple fire scenario. Such multiple fire scenario in industrial clusters located at densely populated environment is a major threat to health and safety of human. Dynamic analysis of multiple fire domino effects is significant since the time to failure and start of fire at each equipment occurs at different times. A quantitative analysis of the dynamic variation in time to failure and failure probabilities of storage tanks during multiple fire domino effects is done. The concept of critical thermal dose is applied in this study for the estimation of dynamic time to failure of each vulnerable storage tank considering maximum synergistic effects based on the temporal variation in the intensity of heat radiation received by them. Improved probit equations are utilised for the calculation of failure probabilities of vulnerable storage tanks as a function of dynamic time to failure. The obtained results enhance timely implementation of accident mitigation measures to reduce associated health, safety and environment issues.