WHY API RECOMMENDED PRACTICE MAY LEAD TO UNSAFE DESIGN OF

PRESSURISED SYSTEMS
S Medonos, Petrellus Limited and Dr G Berge, Petrell a.s.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
Sava Medonos has more than 25 years experience in risk assessment and system integrity
analysis and design in the oil & gas, civil nuclear and process industries. He has performed,
as a project manager, lead engineer or a loss prevention specialist assessments of safety and
project risks, design verifications and engineering tasks on oil & gas and chemical facilities
including offshore platforms, refineries, terminals, chemical plant and civil nuclear
installations. He has also participated in the preparation of standards and guidance for the
resistance of offshore structures against explosions and fires.
Dr Geir Berge has more than 20 years experience in the research and offshore engineering in
fluid flow and thermodynamics. His specialised topics are computer simulation of gas
dispersion, fires and explosions, and 2-phase flow. He has developed a CFD-based system
Brilliant for the simulation of gas dispersion and fire and a hybrid solution system Vessfire
for transient analyses of the thermo-mechanical response of pressurised systems. Dr Berge is
a Associate Professor at the Norwegian Institute of Technology, the University of Trondheim.
ABSTRACT
Pressure vessels that are exposed to fire have a substantial impact on safety in all process
industries. In the oil and gas industry offshore and onshore API 521 and API 520
Recommended Codes of Practice have been the basis for design. Protection systems that have
been applied are emergency shutdown systems (ESD) combined with blowdown (BD),
bursting discs and pressure relief valves with set relief pressure, and passive fire protection
coatings. The code of practice being used is not well documented and decisions whether or
not pressure vessels should be fire-protected have been made on the basis of insufficient
criteria.
The main problem with the applied recommended codes of practice is that they use far too
low fire loads. The codes were originally developed for refineries and they are based on pool
fires with no regard to stress distributions in the vessels. In reality, due to a higher heat load
transferred into the vessel, the strength of vessel steel is reduced faster than it is applied in the
codes. The operator has to rely on that the ESD/BD system is functional and activated to
protect the vessel by depressurisation, but the ESD/BD system may not be sufficiently robust
to depressurise quickly enough. The pressure relief valve (PSV) is not effective and the
pressure vessel bursts before the valve opens, due to the weakening of the material in the
vessel shell as temperature increases. In order to maintain the vessel integrity the vessel has
to be fire protected, but whether or not the fire protection is sufficient to prevent the boiling
of the vessel inventory is not known. A burst of pressure vessel may lead to escalation and a
cataclysmic domino effect fire throughout the plant.
The problem is further augmented by the fact that in the current design practice plant safety
systems are designed in isolation from the actual behaviour of the plant when attacked by a
fire.

There are more than 30 variables that need to be taken into consideration when designing a
pressurised system with a blowdown. The inter-dependency of these variables is complex,
which makes the use of graphs or nomograms practically impossible. A sufficiently robust
design can only be achieved by a time history simulation of coupled processes of heat
transfer, thermodynamics of vessel inventory and stress.
This Paper gives up-to-date information on these subjects together with recent research
initiative and results from response simulations of pressure vessels attacked by a fire.
1

INTRODUCTION

If a pressure vessel is attacked by fire, its temperature rises and this reduces the strength of
the vessel wall. This combined with the pressure in the vessel may lead to failure of the
vessel with catastrophic consequences.
In the event of fire on offshore installations, the primary protection of pressurised process
vessels and pipework is emergency depressurisation (EDP) via the blowdown system. These
systems are currently designed to industry recommended practice, API RP 5211, but it is
widely recognised that in some respects this is inadequate and inappropriate for offshore
installations, for which it was not originally intended. A major concern is that heat loads from
fire attack implicit in the current recommended practice are much lower than can be expected
in severe fires that may occur on offshore installations and thus EDP may not guarantee
vessel protection.
The problem is illustrated in the Figures 1 and 2, which show idealised time histories for
pressure vessel under fire attack (ref. report on Fire Survivability2 and OTO 2000 0513).
In Figure 1, the vessel wall temperature increases slowly with time. The vessel strength
initially remains constant but starts to significantly lose its strength once a critical
temperature is reached (300 to 500oC, depending on the type of steel). The vessel is being
depressurised and the applied stress reduces proportionally with the decreasing internal
pressure. The vessel strength always remains greater than the applied stress and thus the
vessel is protected by the EDP.
In Figure 2, the same vessel is exposed to a more severe fire. The higher heat flux causes the
vessel temperature to rise more rapidly and the vessel strength is dropping too quickly and
the vessel will fail (rupture) once its strength is less that the applied stress.
2

EXISTING GUIDANCE AND PRACTICE

2.1

JIP on Blast and Fire Engineering for Topside Structures

In 1991, the offshore industry with the participation of the UK HSE completed Phase 1 of a
Joint Industry Project on Blast and Fire Engineering for Topside Structures, which included
the thermal response of vessels and pipework exposed to fire and other closely related topics.
However, the mechanical response of pressure vessels was not addressed.

2.2

Interim Guidance Notes

Current industry guidance is encapsulated in the Interim Guidance Notes for the Design and
Protection of Topside Structures against Explosion and Fire4. This focuses on structures
without addressing the integrity problems of pressurised systems.
2.3

API Recommended Practice

The main guidance used in the offshore industry and in refineries for pressure relieving and
depressurising systems is API RP 5211, which is used in conjunction with API 5205. API 520
primarily deals with the calculation of the required pressure relief area and API 521 with the
causes of overpressure, determining relief rates and the design of disposal systems. The basic
formula given in API 520 for the heat absorbed by a vessel engulfed in fire is
Q = 43.2 F A0.82
where
Q is heat absorbed,
A is effective wetted surface are of vessel, and
F is an environment factor.
The effective wetted area of the vessel is defined as the surface area of the vessel in contact
with liquid up to a height of 7.62m above ground level or another surface that could sustain a
fire. The basis of wetted area is that heat transferred to the liquid will eventually boil and
produce much more vapour than the heat transferred to the vapour phase, which produces
only vapour expansion.
The environmental factor (F) is an attempt to correct the heat flow for the effect of insulation,
water drenching and earth covering.
For gas filled vessels, when the vessel contains no liquid, the relief rate in fire depends
entirely on the thermal expansion of the gas. API 520 gives a method for calculating the
effective discharge area of a safety valve as
A = F Ae/P0.5
where
A is required discharge area,
F is relief valve factor,
P is relieving pressure, and
Ae is the exposed surface area of the vessel.
A further elaboration on variables in the above formulae may be found in OTO 2000 0513.
The amount of heat absorbed by a vessel depends on the heat release rate from the fire. API
520 does not provide any description of the fire that was used as the basis for the
development of the above equations. However, the recommended practice states that The
term source of flame usually refers to ground grade but could be at any level at which a
substantial spill or pool fire could be sustained, which indicates that the basis of the above
formulae are refinery poolfires. This indication is confirmed in Table A-1 in Appendix A to

API 520, which contains results from the tests that were used to develop the equation for
determining the heat absorbed from open fires. The burning fuels used in the tests are
gasoline, naphtha, kerosene and butane. This means that a recommended practice developed
for refinery poolfires, of a heat release rate typically 60 to 120kW/m2, is used for the design
of facilities subjected to jet fires, where the heat release rate is between 200 and 400kW/m2.
2.4

Review of Current Knowledge in 1999 / 2000

In 1999 the UK HSE funded a project on the Review of the Response of Pressurised Process
Vessels and Equipment to Fire Attack3. The main conclusion of this work was that the
current guidance used to design emergency depressurisation systems to protect pressure
vessels is inadequate for the most severe fires that may occur on offshore installations. As
only limited measured data on the thermo-mechanical behaviour was found, this work
included a computer simulation of the response of a separator designed in accordance with
the API attacked by a hydrocarbon jet fire, including blowdown, with the following
conclusions:
Blowdown:

Without fire input, the separator was depressurised from 22bara to 6.9bara in 15 minutes
as per API.
Under fire conditions, the pressure dropped to 20.5bara in the first 90 seconds, increased
to 23bara at 5 minutes, dropped again to 16.7bara at 18 minutes and increased again as
the higher boiling components were vaporised.

Thermal and mechanical response of the vessel simulated by elasto-plastic Finite Element
Analysis:

2.5

With the depressurisation from 22bara to 6.9bara in 15 minutes (ie without fire input to
the vessel contents) the separator ruptured at 6 minutes when the pressure was 13.2bara.
Traditional Fire Risk Analysis

In a traditional fire risk analysis it is standard practice to simulate the behaviour of vessels,
equipment and structure to the design fire cases. Typically, this analysis will use the pressure
histories developed during the depressurisation system design to look at the vessel pressure.
However, this analysis does not model the effect of the design fire on the process fluids and
its effect on vessel wall temperature and internal pressures. A second disadvantage of this
analysis being uncoupled from the process simulation is the inability of the designer to model
simultaneous leak and depressurisation to analyse its effect on fire duration.
Also, it is often believed that a jet fire stops at 7barg, i.e. at the end of the 15 minutes
depressurisation. Moreover, it is assumed that vessels with a higher wall thickness, usually
above 25mm, have a sufficient thermal mass to slow down the heating-up process so that a
vessel may survive without fire protection.
The work by Gayton and Murphy6 presents an alternative approach, whereby a simplistic
plate analysis and split fluid modelling are combined to predict the behaviour of the vessels
and equipment to fire. This approach, however, is still over-simplified as it does not consider
all the processes involved in the response of a pressurised system to a fire.
4

PROCESSES IN PRESSURISED SYSTEMS ATTACKED BY FIRE

With reference to Figure 3 the following processes take place during a blowdown of a
pressure vessel attacked by a fire:

Heat transfer from the fire (of the heat release rate qo and flame temperature To) onto the
vessel surface, the surface of fire protective coating, thermal insulation or a protective
shield.
Heat transfer through the fire protective coating, thermal insulation or protective shield.
Heat conduction through the vessel shell with resulting temperature distribution Ts (outer
surface temperature), T1, T2, T3, etc. and Tsi (inner surface temperature).
Heat transfer from the inner vessel surface to the vessel contents (qil to the liquid and qig
to gas).
Thermodynamics of the vessel contents (the temperature and mass of liquid Tl and l, the
temperature and mass of gas Tg and g, evaporation of liquid mlg and condensation of gas
mgl).
Variation of pressure in the vessel due to depressurisation (mt) counter-acted by the
increase of the pressure due to evaporation, boiling and expansion of vessel contents.
Strains and stress in the vessel shell.
Thermodynamics in the depressurisation pipework.

The processes are closely coupled together and they influence each other.
Heat transfer from the fire onto the vessel surface or onto the surface of fire protection.
For a fully engulfed vessel the heat transfer is by radiation and convection. The flame heat
release rate and the temperature distribution within the flame are influenced by the fuel,
supply of oxygen and soot content. The radiation component is higher when soot is in areas
of a high temperature. Soot outside high temperature areas gives a dense smoke and often
also steam, which reduce the radiation component. The convection component is higher for
high velocity flame than for low velocity flame. For jet flames, the flame velocity depends on
the size of the leak and pressure in the leak source. The velocity of a pool fire flame is
approximately constant with respect to the height from the pool surface. The heat transferred
to the vessel reduces with the rising temperature of the vessel surface.
Heat transfer through vessel fire protection.
A pressure vessel may be protected by a coating of fire resistant material with low thermal
conductivity and high heat capacity, or by a cylindrical shield concentric with the vessel.
Alternatively, credit may be taken of a thermal insulation of the vessel, providing that the
sheet metal cladding that holds the thermal protection in place can survive the fire.
The heat transfer mechanism through the protective coating and thermal insulation is mainly
by conduction. In case of the shield it is conduction through the shield material and radiation
and convection through the gap between the shield and the vessel. The thermal and heat
transfer properties varies with temperature for all the three cases.

Heat conduction through the vessel shell.

Heat is then conducted through the vessel wall to the vessel contents. Both specific heat and
thermal conductivity of the vessel material are temperature dependent and they are different
for various construction materials7. Temperature gradients exist in the radial, axial and
circumferential directions. As the heat transfer values are higher for the liquid contents, the
temperature of the inner vessel surface will be lower in the liquid space than in the gas space.
Heat transfer from the inner surface of the vessel shell to the vessel contents.
The mechanisms of heat transfer from the inner surface of the vessel wall to the contents are
by radiation and convection. The convection component is heavily dependent on the
temperature of the vessel inner surface. The convection process is rising moderately with
temperature until a nucleate boiling state is reached at the vessel inner surface, when the heat
transfer is very high. However this again reduces when the nucleate boiling changes to film
boiling.
Thermodynamics of the vessel contents.
The thermodynamic behaviour of vessel contents includes evaporation, boiling, vapour
expansion and pressure, as the liquid and vapours / gas are progressively heated-up from the
vessel shell. Heat and mass transfer takes place between the fluid phases, which are multicomponent hydrocarbon liquid, multi-component hydrocarbon gas, water and steam, through
condensation and vaporisation.
Depressurisation.
Pressure in the vessel reduces based on the thermodynamic conditions of vessel contents and
the orifice size. This is counter-acted by the pressure rise due to the heating-up of vessel
contents, their expansion, evaporation, boiling and the expansion of the vapours or gas in the
vessel.
Stress in vessel shell.
Three dimensional stress state exists in the vessel due to:

Applied pressure;
Temperature gradients; and
External loads on nozzles from pipework.

Data in OTO 2000 0513 suggests that the most probable failure mechanism is as follows:

At elevated temperatures, the combination of mechanical stress, thermal stress and stress
concentrations due to stress risers such as nozzles and changes in wall thickness, and the
associated strains lead to a local exceedence of the ultimate tensile strength (UTS) and the
rupture strain. A ductile rupture occurs and an initial crack forms. The UTS, material
yield stress and rupture strain varies with temperature7.
Local stress around the crack re-distributes with a very high stress concentration at the
crack tip.

The conditions at the crack tip are such that fracture criteria are exceeded and the vessel
unzips in a trajectory that is approximately normal to the direction of principal stress.
In fires, flange connections lose their tightness because of the decrease of the contact
pressure. This is caused by the temperature-induced expansion of the flange bolts being
higher than that of the flanges. Moreover, because of uneven heat distributions, the bolts
elongate differently and leaks occur in the areas with higher temperature.

Temperature of pipework in blowdown system.

The sudden expansion of gas when the blowdown is activated and the drop of the gas
pressure in the system cause a drop in gas temperature. This may lead to low temperature of
the pipework in the blowdown system and material embrittlement.
4

NEW GUIDANCE

During the end of 2000 and beginning of 2001 the information from OTO 2000 0513 was
taken further and a new guidance was drafted based on the experience to date8. It was
concluded, as a part of the work on the guidance, that the problem of a successful design
involves the correct determination of more than 30 variables (refer to Section 3 above). It was
established that the only way how this is practically achievable is by computer simulation.
5

APPLICATION EXAMPLES

A number of computer simulations of the fire response of pressure vessels and pipework have
been carried out to date, typically single and two-phase phase separators and piping to flare,
with and without blowdown and process safety valves. The simulations were performed using
the computer program VESSFIRE9, which incorporates the processes described in Section 3.
A summary of the simulations is presented in Table 1.
Table 1. Summary of Computer Simulations of Thermo-Mechanical Response of an
Inlet Separator.
Description
Vessel Diameter
Vessel Length
Wall Thickness
Oper. Pressure
Design Pressure
Oper. Temp.
Design Temp.
Material
Density
Spec. Heat Cap.
Therm. Conduct.
Yield Stress
UTS
Vessel Inventory
Fire Protection

Case 1
16mm

50/50(i)
Yes, 5mm

Case 2
Case 3
1970mm (inner)
7415mm (tan/tan)
36mm
36mm
22bara
30bara
5.4 / 8.9oC
50/-15oC
Carbon Steel
7850kg/m3
538J/kgK
48.2W/mK
355N/mm2
490N/mm2
Ditto
50/50(2)
No
No

Case 4
36mm

25/25/50(3)
No

Fire
Vessel Failure

No

250kW/m2 jet fire fully engulfing the separator for 30 minutes

at 11.7min(4)
at 12.3min(4)
at 15.7 min(4)

Remarks:
(1) 50% (volume) gas and 50% (volume) hydrocarbon liquid with a small amount of heavy
hydrocarbons;
(2) 50% (volume) gas and 50% (volume) hydrocarbon liquid with a large amount of heavy
hydrocarbons;
(3) 25% (volume) gas, 25% (volume) hydrocarbon liquid with a large amount of heavy
hydrocarbon, and 50% (volume) water;
(4) Minutes after the start of the fire.
The jet fire used in the analyses is conservative. As the Blast and Fire Engineering for
Topside Structures10 show, incident heat flux onto a cylindrical target considerably reduces
with length away from the flame center. This would indicate a high heat flux at the footprint
of the flame around the target circumference combined with a background heat radiation of a
much lower magnitude. This was also indicated in the FSPS8 pre-project.
The separator vessel was deemed to fail when the applied stress was equal to the material
yield stress. This assumes elastic-perfectly plastic material where, at the yield stress, the
vessel shell deformation increases infinitely with no increase of load. In reality, steel exhibits
residual strength above the first yield, which is caused by its hardening. However material
hardening at high temperatures is relatively low.
5.1

Case 1

Case 1 was originally a bare vessel with no passive fire protection (PFP). The vessel failed
after a few minutes. A subsequent analysis was for a vessel with a 5mm protective coating,
which showed that the integrity of the vessel was maintained throughout the duration of the
fire.
5.2

Case 2

As Figure 4 shows the temperature of the vessel is rising rapidly with a rapid reduction of the
material yield stress and the vessel fails at 11.7 minutes after the start of the fire.
The internal pressure and stress in the vessel is reducing up to 20 minutes, when it starts to
rise due to the evaporation of the vessel liquid hydrocarbon contents. There is a sharp rise of
the pressure at approximately 29 minutes. At this point, the hydrocarbon gas mass rises in
step and the liquid reduces in step (Figure 5). This change occurs as the conditions in the
separator become supercritical. In the supercritical region the fluid can be described as
neither liquid nor gas, but as the further depressurisation follows that of expanding gas, the
vessel inventory has been depicted as gas.
5.3

Case 3

Case 3 is similar to Case 2 except for the amount of heavy hydrocarbon components, which is
higher than in Case 2. The vessel fails at 12.3 minutes after the start of the fire. The vessel
inventories exhibit behaviour similar to Case 2, i.e. supercritical conditions in the separator at
26 minutes.
8

5.4

Case 4

The evaporation, boiling, expansion and rise of pressure of the vessel contents are dependent
on the composition of the vessel inventories. It is important to understand that blowdown is
the removal of the mass of vessel inventories in their gaseous form, i.e. they need to change
their state to gas and only then they are released through a flare. This is easier for light
hydrocarbon components, where many are already in their gaseous form, than for heavier
components. Each component has its boiling point and water is a special category because if
its low boiling point comparing to the boiling point of the heavier hydrocarbon components.
The water content will start to boil and evaporate at 100oC and greater depending on pressure
in the vessel. Figure 9 illustrates the process where the steam mass is rising very rapidly
whilst the increase of gas mass is far less dramatic. Very often it may be the water content
that causes a rapid rise of pressure. This is critical in vessels with relatively thin walls where
the vessel material rapidly loses strength due to its low thermal mass being heated-up.
The vessel in this case fails at 15.7 minutes after the start of the fire (Figure 8).
5.5

Response of Pipes

Pipes and flowlines respond differently from pressure vessels as the heat is transferred to the
moving fluid and carried away from the area of the fire attack. As Figures 10 and 11 show
pipe failure is dependent on the flow rate; this is for 15 minutes jet fire. At a flow rate of
12.7kg/s an unprotected pipe will maintain its integrity during a jet fire. However, if the flow
rate reduces to 1.6kg/s the pipe fails at 2.6 minutes after the start of the fire.
6

CONCLUSIONS

The following conclusions have been reached based on the authors experience in the
simulation of fire response of pressurized systems:
1. The API Recommended practice is inadequate for sizing of depressurising systems for
hydrocarbon fires due to the following reasons:
The fire heat input considered in the API is between 1.7 to 5.7 times lower than that of
realistic hydrocarbon jet fires.
The API does not consider the variety of flame impingement / engulfment of vessels that
occurs in reality.
The API does not consider process fluids, internal pressures or stress conditions in
pressure vessels.
This is also valid for refinery systems with pressurised hydrocarbon gas systems, where
there are risks of jet fires.

2. There are 8 processes and approximately 30 variables that influence them, which should
be considered in the design of depressurizing systems. The processes and variables are
described in Section 3.
3. Due to the number of design variables it is practically impossible to develop simplistic
design aids such a graphs or nomograms. The only practicle method is computer
simulation.
4. Realistic duration of jet fires is longer that 15 minutes depressurisation to 7barg of the fire
source.
5. Pressure vessels with hydrocarbon inventories may need fire protection even if they have
large wall thickness. The PFP requirement should be determined by a transient analysis of
the thermo-mechanical response.
6. Full engulfment of pressure vessels by a jet flame may be over-conservative in many
cases, especially for long vessels. A more realistic fire loading should be considered,
which would lead to more realistic requirements for fire protection.
REFERENCES
1. Guide for Pressure-Relieving and Depressuring Systems, API Recommended Practice
521, 4th Edition, March 1997.
2. Fire Survivability of a Pressure Vessel, a confidential report.
3. T.A. Roberts, S. Medonos and L. Shirvill, Review of the Response of Pressurised
Process Vessels and Equipment to Fire Attack, Offshore Technology Report OTO 2000
051, June 2000.
4. Interim Guidance Notes for the Design and Protection of Topside Structures against
Explosion and Fire, The Steel Construction Institute, SCI Report No. SCI-P-112 with
amendments and 26 volumes of substantiating reports.
5. Sizing, Selection and Installation of Pressure-Relieving Devices in Refineries, API
Recommended Practice 520, 7th Edition, January 2000.
6. P.W. Gayton, S.N. Murphy, Depressurisation System Design, 1995.
7. G. Berge, S. Medonos, Performance of Materials Used on an Offshore Separator
Affected by a Fire, OMAE2000-2484, New Orleans, 2000.
8. G. Berge, S. Medonos, Fire Safety of Pressurised Systems Pre-Project, a project
funded by Statoil and Norsk Hydro.
9. VESSFIRE User Manual, Petrell a.s.
10. Blast and Fire Engineering for Topside Structures, Phase 2, SCI Publication No. 253.

10

Figure 1. Vessel Strength is Greater than Applied Stress - Vessel is Protected by Emergency
Depressurisation.
400

1200

350

1000

800

250

600

200
150

400

100
200

50
0

0
0

10

12

14

16

Time [min]

Yield stress

Calculated
stress of shell

11

Max. average
steel temperature

18

20

Temperature [K]

Stress [N/mm2]

300

Figure 2. Vessel Strength is Lower than Applied Stress - Vessel Fails

1200

400
350

1000

800

250

600

200
150

400

100
200

50
0

0
0

10

12

14

16

Time [min]

Yield stress

Calculated
stress of shell

12

Max. average
steel temperature

18

20

Temperature [K]

Stress [N/mm2]

300

m t
qo

To

Tm

g
m lg

m gl

qig
Tg

Ts

Tsi

Tl l

qil
T1,T2,T3

Figure 3. Illustration of Processes in a Pressure Vessel Affected by a Fire.

13

Figure 4. Time Variation of Average Temperature of Vessel Shell, Yield Stress and Applied Stress.
(Case 2, Vessel Contents: 50% (Volume) Gas and 50% (Volume) Oil with a Small Amount of Heavy
Hydrocarbons.)
400

1200

350

1000

800

250
200

600

150

400

100
200

50
0

0
0

10

20

30

40

50

Time [min]

Yield stress

Calculated
stress of shell

14

Max. average
steel temperature

60

70

Temperature [K]

Stress [N/mm2]

300

8,000

8,000

7,000

7,000

6,000

6,000

5,000

5,000

4,000

4,000

3,000

3,000

2,000

2,000

1,000

1,000

0
0

10

20

30

40

50

Time [min]
Mass oil

Sum Mass

15

Mass gas

60

70

Mass Gas [kg]

Mass Oil [kg]

Figure 5. Time Variation of Mass in the Vessel.

(Case 2, Vessel Contents: 50% (Volume) Gas, 50% (Volume) Oil with a Small Amount of Heavy Hydrocarbons.)

Figure 6. Time Variation of Average Temperature of Vessel Shell, Yield Stress and Applied Stress.
(Case 3, Vessel Contents: 50% (Volume) Gas and 50% (Volume) Oil with a Large Amount of Heavy
Hydrocarbons.)
400

1200

350

1000

800

250
200

600

150

400

100
200

50
0

0
0

10

20

30

40

50

Time [min]

Yield stress

Calculated
stress of shell

16

Max. average
steel temperature

60

70

Temperature [K]

Stress [N/mm2]

300

8,000

8,000

7,000

7,000

6,000

6,000

5,000

5,000

4,000

4,000

3,000

3,000

2,000

2,000

1,000

1,000

0
0

10

20

30

40

50

Time [min]
Mass oil

Sum Mass

17

Mass gas

60

70

Mass Gas [kg]

Mass Oil [kg]

Figure 7. Time variation of Mass in the Vessel.

(Case 3, Vessel Contents: 50% (Volume) Gas and 50% (Volume) Oil with a Large Amount of Heavy
Hydrocarbons.)

Figure 8. Time Variation of Average Temperature of Vessel Shell, Yield Stress and Applied Stress.
(Case 4, Vessel Contents: 25% (Volume) Gas, 25% (Volume) Oil with a Large Amount of Heavy Hydrocarbons,
and 50% (Volume) Water.)
1200

400
350

1000
800

250
200

600

150

400

100
200

50
0

0
0

10

20

30

40

50

Time [min]

Yield stress

Calculated
stress of shell

18

Max. average
steel temperature

60

70

Temperature [K]

Stress [N/mm2]

300

Figure 9. Time Variation of Mass in the Vessel.

(Case 4, Vessel Contents: 25% (Volume) Gas, 25% (Volume) Oil with a Large Amount of Heavy Hydrocarbons,
and 50% (Volume) Water.)
10,000

250

9,000
8,000

200

6,000

150

5,000
4,000

100

3,000
2,000

50

1,000
0

0
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Time [min]
Mass oil

Sum Mass

Mass water
19

Mass gas

Mass steam

70

Mass Gas [kg]

Mass Oil [kg]

7,000

Figure 10. Time History of Average Temperature, Yield Stress and Applied Stress in a Pipe to Flare.
(Flow Rate = 12.7 kg/s.)
800

500
450

700

400
600
500

300
250

400

200

300

150
200
100
100

50
0

0
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Time [min]
Yield stress

Calculated
stress of shell

20

Max. average
steel temperature

70

Temperature [K]

Stress [N/mm2]

350

500

1000

450

900

400

800

350

700

300

600

250

500

200

400

150

300

100

200

50

100

0
0

Time [min]
Yield stress

Calculated
stress of shell

21

Max. average
steel temperature

Temperature [K]

Stress [N/mm2]

Figure 11. Time History of Average Temperature, Yield Stress and Applied Stress in a Pipe to Flare.
(Flow Rate = 1.6 kg/s.)