DEVELOPMENT OF A GAS-BASED APPLICATION FOR FIRE MODELING IN THE PROCESS INDUSTRIES

• Main Author: Mohd Farid, Nor Farhani
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS 2010
• Subjects: TP Chemical technology
• Online Access: http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/9437/1/2010%20-%20Development%20of%20a%20GIS%20Based%20Application%20for%20fire%20Modelling%20in%20the%20Process%20Industries.pdf; http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/9437/

The major hazards with which the chemical industry is concerned are fire, explosion and toxic release. Of these three, fire is the most common. In assessing the damage potential and causes or errors which have led to these disasters, an analysis has to be done. The impacts of fires in the process industries may be predicted by the application of mathematical models. However, the applications of these models require competency in mathematics and computer programming. Therefore, the objective of this project is to develop an application called the Fire Simulation Tool (FiST), which is able to study the impact of fire in the process industry. The scope of work for this project is confmed to fire cases only, which are: flash fire, jet fire, pool fire and fireball. The FiST application is developed using Visual Basic (VB) programming language with integration of GIS tools. The mathematical models of the four types of fire are simulated and the results are integrated to GIS for better visualization. The development is done by customizing MapObjects using VB. With MapObjects user can incorporate mapping capabilities in their application. The methodology of the project includes utilizing established models in order to calculate the impact of fire. The development of this software has been divided into five different stages, which are planning the application, building the graphical user interface (GUI), writing the computer programme, software validation and verification and lastly, integrating the results from the tool with GIS application to present the simulation outcome as buffer zones around the centre of the accident. The results from FiST software is verified and validated with other risk assessment softwares such as: FRED (developed by Shell Global company, 2004), BIS (developed by ThermDyne Technologies Ltd, 2003) and SCIA (developed by EI-Harbawi, 2006) and with established data. The software is capable to estimate the thermal radiation and the impacts from the fire scenarios which include the probability of frrst, second and third degree of bums for the hmnan skin. The FiST application is useful and feasible because it is user-friendly, able to function as a stand-alone application and it is compatible with all windows operating system. Furthermore, the cost of developing the software is cheap and the application incorporates the risk tolerability limit for Malaysia.