Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 73 (2021) 104617

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jlp

Dynamic responses and damage of storage tanks under the coupling effect
of blast wave and fragment impact
En Lai a, b, Jie Zhao a, b, Xiaofeng Li a, b, Kun Hu a, b, Guohua Chen a, b, *
a
Institute of Safety Science & Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640, Guangdong, China
b
Guangdong Provincial Science and Technology Collaborative Innovation Center for Work Safety, Guangzhou, 510640, Guangdong, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Blast wave and fragment are two main types of physical damage effects representing a significant threat to
Blast wave storage tank structures in chemical industrial parks. Compared with the effect of only blast wave or fragment, the
Fragment impact coupling effect of them may cause more severe consequences and is worthy of study. A numerical study of the
Coupling effect
dynamic responses and damage of a vertical storage tank subjected to the coupling effect of blast wave and
Dynamic response
Numerical simulation
fragment is conducted based on a typical accident. The simulation results reveal that stress-concentration and
rapid increase of the stress exist in the impacted region of the storage tank under the coupling effect, which leads
to the structural damage of the tank exhibiting different failure modes. The coupling effect is significantly
apparent following a dramatic increase of the plastic strain, and the damage of the storage tank is further
aggravated. From the displacement response and energy absorption, the overall damage of the storage tank
subjected to the coupling effect is more severe than that caused by blast wave and fragment separately, which
also indicates that the coupling effect is an enhanced damage effect. Besides, the contribution of blast wave and
fragment to the coupling effect depends on scaled distance. The results of the study help reveal the coupling
effect of blast wave and fragment and prevent domino accidents caused by the coupling effect.

1. Introduction
With the implementation of policies in China that chemical enter­
prises should be relocated from cities to chemical industrial parks in
China, many hazard sources became concentrated and it increases the
overall risk of chemical industry parks. Two physical damage effects,
namely blast wave and fragment, can appear in most of the explosions.
Both of those effects have the potential to trigger domino accidents by
causing adjacent equipment failure (Cozzani et al., 2005).
Storage tanks are widely used as containment vessels for various
chemical liquids. The performance of storage tanks under extreme blast
and impact loading conditions is of great importance due to the explo­
siveness of these liquids. When a major accident occurs in chemical
industrial parks, the physical effect often damages the storage tank and
even a coupling effect of blast wave and fragment is possible (He and
Weng, 2020). There are some striking accidents in Mexico City (Mexico,
1984) (Pietersen, 1988), Lanzhou City (China, 2010) (State Adminis­
tration of Work Safety of China, 2010), Linyi City (China, 2017)
(Shandong Provincial Administration of Work Safety, 2017) and Yan­
cheng City (China, 2019) (Ministry of Emergency Management of the
People’s Republic of China, 2019). The above cases show that the events
caused by the coupling effect of blast wave and fragment are destructive.
Take the major explosion of Linyi City as an example. The accident
happened at midnight (about 0:57) on Monday, Jun 5, 2017. A chain of
events at the chemical plant in Linyi caused significant losses. LPG
leakage followed by ignition caused several explosions, which produced
blast wave and fragment and almost destroyed some chemical facilities.
The aerial accident image and video image are shown in Fig. 1. The
majority of damage areas due to blast wave occurred within the LPG
loading-unloading area, which stretched out to roughly 500 m away.
The total TNT equivalent mass of various explosions was estimated at
31.29 tons and 8.4 tons is the TNT equivalent mass of the most severe
explosion. The accident report stated that pressurized tank cars con­
taining LPG ruptured and were fragmented into many parts. The frag­
ments scattered about over great distances and some impacted several
storage tanks, like the A06 storage tank (Shandong Provincial Admin­
istration of Work Safety, 2017). The accident indicates that a storage
tank can be subjected to blast wave and fragment loadings during
catastrophic events. Therefore, it is essential to investigate the dynamic
response and damage of the storage tank when subject to the coupling

* Corresponding author. Institute of Safety Science & Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640, Guangdong, China.
E-mail address: mmghchen@scut.edu.cn (G. Chen).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jlp.2021.104617
Received 13 January 2021; Received in revised form 8 July 2021; Accepted 10 August 2021
Available online 12 August 2021
0950-4230/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
E. Lai et al.
Fig. 1. Pictures related to the accident: (a) aerial image; (b) the LPG pressurized tank car (Shandong Provincial Administration of Work Safety, 2017).
effect of blast wave and fragment.
Literature has also focused mainly on the dynamic behaviors and
failure modes of storage tanks subjected to blast wave (Lu and Wang,
2012; Salzano and Anna, 2015; Zhang et al., 2015; Yan et al., 2019) or
fragment impact (Nguyen et al., 2009; Yu and Jeong, 2016; Hu et al.,
2020; Chen et al., 2020). Regarding the dynamic behavior analysis of
storage tanks under blast loading, Lu and Wang (2012) found that the
inner liquid collided with the oil tank intensively under blast loading,
and the peak pressure produced by liquid had the similar order of
magnitude with the blast wave. They believed that blast wave and the
sloshing liquid jointly caused the bulking and damage of the tank. Sal­
zano and Anna (2015) developed a simplified model based on Johnson’s
damage number to reproduce the dynamic behavior of structural
interaction of the explosion with the target. Zhang et al. (2015) analyzed
the dynamic responses of a 1000 m3 spherical storage tank under the
blast loads by numerical simulations. Yan et al. (2019) investigated the
dynamic response of a typical 160,000 m3 LNG prestressed concrete
outer tank under blast loading. They proposed the damage factor based
on energy propagation to analyze the tank’s damage types and failure
mechanism.
Some scholars also examined the dynamic behavior and failure
model of storage tanks under fragment impact. Nguyen et al. (2009)
proposed a mechanical model for evaluating the residual depth of the
targets and the penetration depth of fragment after impact to determine
storage tank failure. Yu and Jeong (2016) presented a computational
framework to analyze the effect of fluid-structure interaction on the
impact dynamics and puncture failure of pressurized tank cars carrying
hazardous materials. Hu et al. (2020) investigated the effects of frag­
ment type, impact height, roof-impact angle, impact velocity, and
impact angle on the tank damage process. Sun et al. (2016) investigated
the mechanism of the protective layer against high velocity and low
mass projectiles, and Chen et al. (2020) simulated the dynamic response
process of the large-scale vertical storage tank impacted by the end-cap
fragment to investigate the performance of protective layer.
2
Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 73 (2021) 104617
So far, knowledge about the influence of coupling effect of blast wave
and fragment on the storage tank structural behaviors is quite limited.
Some studies have been conducted on the damage and destruction of
structures (no storage tank structure) under combined effects of shock
wave and fragment (Joosef, 2004; Zhang et al., 2014; Li et al., 2019).
Joosef (2004) carried out experiments and numerical investigations to
examine how the concrete is affected by the blast wave and fragment
impacts at various distances and pointed out that damage to the concrete
was localized in the impact zone but was not all global load effects.
Zhang et al. (2014) explored damage mechanisms of composite sand­
wich plates with the core of steel-GFRP- steel impacted by blast waves
and high-speed fragments. The experimental results showed that the
damage level of the sandwich plates subjected to combined impacts of
blast waves and fragments is much higher than that only subjected to
blast waves only. Li et al. (2019) evaluated the synergetic effects for the
composite laminate subjected to the combined blast loading and the
fragments impact at the scenarios of the near-field and the far-field ex­
plosions and supposed that the coupling effect is attributed to the
conjunction of damage and the continuous pressure.
Since the coupling effect of blast wave and fragment causes far
severer damage than the sum of damage caused by blast wave and
fragments alone (Marchand et al., 1992), it is necessary to investigative
the dynamic response and the failure modes of storage tank under the
coupling effect of blast wave and fragment. The present study performs
numerical simulations to investigate the dynamic responses and damage
of a vertical storage tank subjected to the coupling effect of blast wave
and fragment by using the explicit nonlinear dynamic FEA software
LS-DYNA.
The outline of the paper is as follows. In Section 2, The finite element
model is established based on the characteristics of the accident scene.
The validation of the finite element model is elaborated in Section 3.
Numerical results and discussions are presented in Section 4, where the
distribution of effective stress, failure modes, structural displacement,
and energy absorption under the coupling effect of blast wave and
E. Lai et al. Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 73 (2021) 104617

Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of geometry and finite element model: (a) geometry model, (b) finite element model.

geometry and finite element model. The storage tank is made of Q235A
Table 1
steel with a volume of 2000 m3 and an inner diameter of 15.78 m. The
The dimension parameters of storage tank (Ministry of Chemical Industry
shape and the size of the tank are shown in Fig. 2(b) and Table 1. The
Development of The People’s Republic of China, 1992).
filling material is isooctane with a density of 691.9 kg/m3 and a filling
Material Volume Diameter Wall Roof Total thickness coefficient of 0.8. The hydraulic pressure distribution depends on the
(m3) (m) height height height (mm)
(m) (m) (m)
filling material and filling height, and the pressure magnitude is calcu­
lated by P = 691.9 × 9.8 × (9.10-z) Pa. The LOAD_SHELL_SET keyword
Q235A 2000 15.78 11.37 1.721 13.091 5.5–11
was used to apply pressure load on the tank. Two types of the fragment
steel
are assumed to be end-cap and tube section based on the rupture pattern
of the vessel (Gubinelli and Cozzani, 2009a, 2009b). The shape and the
fragment are analyzed. The last section draws the main conclusions of size of fragments are shown in Fig. 2(b), and more details about the
this study. containment vessel of LPG are shown in Table 2. The impact position of
the fragment is assumed to be at the middle region of the storage tank.
2. Finite element modelling Moreover, according to the Standard for fire prevention design of petro­
chemical enterprises (Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development
2.1. Description of the model of The People’s Republic of China, 2018), the safety distance of the
storage tanks is 9.45 m.
A finite element model is created by simplifying the above actual
accident and modelled by kg-m-s unit, mainly consisting of four parts:
two storage tanks, fragment, air, and equivalent TNT. Fig. 2 shows the

Table 2
Deterministic characteristics of the LPG vessel considered in the case (Jingmen Hongtu Special Aircraft Manufacturing CO.LTD., 2015).
Characteristic Volume, V Density, ρf Design pressure, Working Diameter, Length, l Specific heat Thickness, Mass (Mass of
(m3) (kg⋅m− 3) Pd (MPa) safety factor Φ(m) (m) ratio of LPG, γ δ(mm) end-cap), M (kg)

Value 36 7850 (Q345 1.8 1.1 2.37 9.116 1.133 16 10,695 (1102)
steel)

3
E. Lai et al. Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 73 (2021) 104617

Table 3
Cowper-Symonds parameters for the storage tank and fragment (Xin, 2020).
Material Density ρ(kg⋅m− 3) Elastic modulus E (Pa) Static yield stress σ0(Pa) Poisson’s ratio μ Tangent modulus Failure strain εˊ C P
Et (Pa)

Q235A steel 7850 2.0 × 1011 2.35 × 108 0.29 5 × 108 0.32 40.4 5
Q345 steel 7850 2.1 × 1011 3.25 × 108 0.33 1 × 109 0.21 40.4 5

Table 4
JWL EOS for TNT (Van Den Berg and Lannoy, 1993).
Density Detonation velocity D (m⋅s− 1) C-J pressure PCJ (Pa) A (Pa) B(Pa) R1 R2 ω Eex (J⋅m− 3) v
ρ(kg⋅m− 3)
1640 6930 2.7 × 1010 3.73 × 1011 3.23 × 109 4.15 0.95 0.3 7.0 × 109 1.0

2.2. Elements and meshing

Table 5
LINEAR_POLYNOMIAL EOS for air (Van Den Berg and Lannoy, 1993).
Considering that the storage tank is a thin-shell structure, the SHELL
Lagrange elements are used to mesh the tank. Fragment and air are Density C0 C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6 Eair v
Р(kg⋅m− 3) (J⋅m− 3)
modelled using SOLID elements, where SOLID Lagrange elements are
used to mesh fragment and SOLID Euler elements are used to mesh air. 1.29 − 1.0 × 0 0 0 0.4 0.4 0 2.5 × 105 1.0
10− 6
The mapping mesh is applied to TNT by the INITIAL_VOLUME_­
FRACTION_GEOMETRY keyword. For different high-scaled distances,
the study chose a 300 mm mesh for air which is accurate enough to
analyze blast wave propagation (Luccioni et al., 2006; Wang et al., Table 6
2016). The size of the Lagrange elements representing storage tank and Conditions of the numerical simulation.
fragment is 250 mm based on the Euler elements size (LSTC, 2018). Scale distance, Z The equivalent Explosion Fragment impact
（m⋅kg-1/3） mass of TNT (kg) distance, Rex velocity, uimp
(m) (m⋅s− 1)
2.3. Material modelling
1 8400 20 150
2 41 145
2.3.1. Model and parameter for storage tank and fragment 3 61 140
Considering the large strain and rupture of the metal material and 4 81 135
high strain rate, the Cowper-Symonds model is suitable for steel. It 5 102 130
6 122 124
predicts dynamic yield stress σd as:
7 142 119
( )[ ( ε )1p ]
/ 8 163 112
σ d = σ0 + βEp εfp 1 + (1) 9 183 106
C 10 203 99

where σd is the dynamic yield stress; σ 0 is the static yield stress; Ep is the
plastic stress hardening modulus; εfp is the effective plastic strain; ε is the
strain rate; β is the stress hardening parameters; C and p are constants of
the material. The material properties of the Cowper-Symonds model for
storage tanks and fragment are listed in Table 3.
air; C1~C6 are material constants. The material properties of air and
parameters used for the state equation are listed in Table 5.
2.4. Boundary condition and contact definition

2.3.2. Model and parameter for TNT and air The contact definition markedly affects the accuracy of the results of
The high explosive burn material model and standard Jones-Wilkin- a finite element model. According to the accident report, the A06 storage
Lee (JWL) equation of state (EOS) are widely used to describe the tank was subject to blast wave and fragment, while the A05 storage was
thermodynamics of the detonation products. The explosion pressure is subject to blast wave only. Therefore, this paper changes the contact
expressed as a function of the volume and energy: definition of the storage tank and blast wave (fragment) to investigate
( ) ( ) the dynamic responses and damage of storage tanks under the coupling
ω − R1 v ω − R2 v ω
PD = A 1 − e +B 1− e + Eex (2) effect. CONTACT_ERODING_SURFACE_TO_SURFACE was used to define
R1 v R2 v v
the contact between the storage tank and fragment, CON­
STRAIND_LAGRANGA_IN_SOLID was used to define the fluid-solid
where PD is the dynamic hydrostatic pressure; v is the relative volume;
coupling process of the storage tank and blast wave. Also, it is neces­
Eex is the specific internal energy of explosive; A, B, R1, R2, and ω are
sary to apply constraints to the bottom of the tank, and non-reflection
material constants, which are determined experimentally. The material
boundary conditions were applied on air to stabilize the results output.
properties of TNT charge and parameters used for the JWL equation are
listed in Table 4.
2.5. Numerical conditions
2.3.3. Model and parameter for air
Based upon the total explosive equivalent mass of TNT (31.29 tons)
Air is assumed to behave as an ideal gas using the null material model
and the farthest distance of 312 m, the possible scaled distance can be
and linear polynomial EOS to simulate. The linear polynomial EOS can
calculated as 9.8 m kg− 1/3 by Eq. (4). Considering that the maximum
be defined as:
explosive equivalent of TNT was 8.4 tons, the conditions of the nu­
( )
pa = C0 + C1 μ + C2 μ2 + C3 μ3 + C4 + C5 μ + C6 μ2 Eair (3) merical simulation were estimated to be listed in Table 6. The estimation
attempts to meet the characteristics of the accident as much as possible
where Eair is the specific internal energy of air; μ is the relative volume of and investigate the dynamic responses of the storage tank under the

4
E. Lai et al. Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 73 (2021) 104617

Table 7 The initial velocity of fragment is 155 m/s, and the calculated impact
Comparison between numerical and test results of cylindrical shells deformation velocity is also shown in Table 6.
values (Wu et al., 2017).
Rex
No. Stand-off Hole- Deformation Deformation Relative Z= (4)
M 1/3
distances spacing value (cm) Test value (cm) error (%)
(mm) (mm) results (Wu Numerical
where Rex is the explosion distance, M is the equivalent mass of TNT.
et al., 2017) results

1 100 6 17.8 18.76 5.39

3. Validation of the finite element model
2 140 6 13.3 14.16 6.47
3 180 6 5.7 5.91 3.68
4 100 12 27.3 23.60 − 13.55 Given the loading conditions that the storage tank was subjected to,
5 140 12 16.8 14.47 − 13.87 two separate experiments were selected to verify the numerical model
6 180 12 4.0 4.43 10.75
proposed in this paper. In the first experiment, the cylindrical metal
7 140 16 15.0 16.08 7.20
8 100 21 25.3 21.96 − 13.32
shells with pre-formed holes were loaded by blast loading (Wu et al.,
9 140 21 14.5 14.63 0.91 2017). In the second experiment, the solid plates were subjected to the
10 180 21 5.4 6.17 14.26 combined blast wave and fragment loading (Zhang et al., 2014).
11 140 26 15.6 14.32 − 8.20
12 100 31 27.1 23.10 − 14.76
13 140 31 14.3 14.01 2.02 3.1. Cylindrical shells with pre-formed holes loaded by blast loading

Firstly, the cylindrical metal shells with pre-formed holes tested by

Wu et al. (2017) under air blast loading were simulated to validate the
accuracy of the fluid-structure algorithm. The cylindrical metal shells
were made of Q235 steel with pre-formed holes that simulate the
penetration effect of fragments. The blast wave was generated by
detonating a cylindrical TNT explosive of 200 g with different stand-off
distances from 100 mm to 180 mm. The experimental deformation
values were compared with the FE predictions, as shown in Table 7 and
Fig. 3. The maximum relative error is 14.76 % and the minimum is 0.91
% in Table 7. The calculated mean error is 8.80 %, indicating a good
agreement between simulation and experiment.

3.2. Steel plate loaded by the combined blast and fragment loading

In order to further validate the application of the coupling and

Fig. 3. Comparison between numerical and test results in Table 7.
coupling effect within all high-scaled distances (Z from 1.0 m kg− 1/3to
10.0 m kg− 1/3). The impact velocity of fragment can be calculated by
Appendix A and B, and part of the calculating data are shown in Table 2.
erosion algorithm among the explosion, fragment and target structure, a
experiment of steel plate loaded by the combined blast and fragment
loading conducted by Zhang et al. (2014). It was selected to simulate the
dynamic response and the target structure failure process. The experi­
mental set-up included a square steel plate, and the size was 500 mm ×
500 mm with a thickness of 4 mm. The TNT explosive with a mass of
400 g was located 148 mm away above the plate, and 81 fragments with
dimensions of 5 mm × 5 mm × 2 mm were pasted on the bottom of the
charge. The comparison of failure morphology from experiments and
simulations is shown in Fig. 4. It can be found that simulation captured
most of the deformation and failure patterns observed in the experiment,
such as plugging failure, perforation failure and crater damage of the

Fig. 4. Comparison of damage of solid plate under combined blast and fragment loading: (a) experiment results, (b) simulation results.

5
E. Lai et al. Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 73 (2021) 104617

Table 8 relative error column, and the calculated mean error is 4.62 %. In sum,
Comparison between numerical and test results of steel plate (Zhang, 2014). the accuracy of the proposed numerical method is acceptable. It is
Experimental Experimental results Numerical results Relative error feasible to simulate the dynamic responses and damage of the storage
parameters (mm) (mm) (%) tanks under the coupling effect of blast wave and fragment by the nu­
dx 61.5 55.92 9.07 merical method.
dy 52.0 47.88 7.92
25 25.10 0.4
δp
4. Results and discussions
R 155 152.67 1.50

4.1. Stress response of the storage tank

steel plate. Furthermore, the comparisons between experiment data (the
size of central perforation hole (dx, dy), the permanent deflection of the
central crater (δp), and farthest distance of fragment impacts (R)) and
simulation are listed in Table 8. Analysis has been conducted on the
Fig. 5 shows the stress time curves of the impacted region of the
storage tank subjected to different loading combinations. First, the blast
wave loads on the storage tank without fragments, resulting in
compressive waves forming and diffusing in the structure. When the

Fig. 5. The stress time curves of an impacted region of the storage tank subjected to different loading combinations:(a) blast wave and end-cap fragment, (b) blast
wave and tube section fragment (c) the maximum blast or fragment loading.

6
E. Lai et al.
Fig. 6. The effective strain time curves of an impacted region of the storage tank: subjected to different loading combinations:(a) blast wave and end-cap fragment,
(b) blast wave and tube section fragment (c) the maximum blast or fragment loading.
fragment reaches the storage tank, the stress of the impacted region
increases significantly in a short time with a maximum peak. As can be
seen in Fig. 5(a) and (b), the maximum stress peak goes down with the
increase of scaled distance. Even though the maximum stress doesn’t
exceed 235 MPa under the separate loading, all the maximum stress
peaks under the coupling effect of blast wave and end-cap fragment or
tube section fragment are greater than the yield stress of Q235A steel.
Comparing mainly Fig. 5(a) and (b) with Fig. 5(c), only one to two stress
peaks under the maximum blast wave or fragment loaded while multiple
peaks appear under the coupling effect. In the case of Z = 1.0 and uimp =
150 m/s, 8 stress peaks due to compressive wave travelling and
reflecting in the storage tank can be observed. In addition, the stress
peaks of the coupling effect are always higher than that under separate
blast loading or fragment loading. Therefore, the coupling effect of blast
and fragment will further exacerbate the storage tank damage due to the
phenomenon of multiple stress peaks.
4.2. Strain response of the storage tank
The storage tank is in compression and tension due to blast wave and
fragment loading, which results in the increase of effective strain to
approximate or reach the failure strain of Q235A steel. Fig. 6 shows the
effective plastic strain time curves on the impacted region of the storage
tank under the coupling effect of blast wave and fragment. From Fig. 6
(a) and (b), all the effective strain of affected region increases sharply
under the coupling effect in a short time (approximately 0.02s), and the
structure goes through a large amount of plastic deformation, even
though it may fail in the end. In addition, the maximum effective strains
gradually drop as the scaled distance increases. In the first scenario,
under the coupling effect of Z = 1.0 and uimp = 150 m/s, the effective
strain demonstrates the most substantial change at the shortest time, and
its maximum effective strain reaches 0.32 at 0.07s. Subsequently, the
7
Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 73 (2021) 104617
effective strain suddenly falls to zero, which means that the actual
effective strain at this moment exceeds the failure strain of the Q235A
steel and the shell element becomes invalid. For other numerical con­
ditions, even though the effective strain does not exceed the failure
strain, the maximum effective strain of the storage tank under the
coupling effect is greater than that of blast loading by comparing Fig. 6
(a) and (b) and Fig.(c). The above results demonstrate that the coupling
effect will cause a more severe plastic failure to the storage tank.
4.3. Failure modes and failure processes
The typical failure modes of the storage tank subjected to blast or
fragment loading mainly include perforation, local depression, and
buckling deformation, as shown in Fig. 7(a). To analyze the storage
tank’s failure processes under the coupling effect (Fig. 8), we take Z =
1.0 and uimp = 10 m/s as an example and characterized three specific
stages. In the first stage (0–0.025 s), blast wave is loaded on the front of
the storage tank without fragment and compressive waves are formed,
then the buckling deformation failure occurs. In the second stage
(0.026s–0.1s), fragment impacts the storage tank, leading to further
increasing of the local stress, and the storage tank cracks or experiences
severe depression failure. In the last stage (0.1s–0.3s), the stress wave
formed by blast wave and fragment continues to increase the coupling
effect, global failure such as collapse, and excessive bending.
With further numerical simulations, the storage tank damage can be
classified into three categories according to scaled distance. As shown in
Fig. 7(b), for the primary damage, the storage tank is still in relatively
good condition with local depression due to the weak air blast wave. For
the medium damage, there is a large collapse area in the storage tank but
no cracks. The storage tank is completely disrupted and it lost the
bearing capacity for severe damage, and the main failure modes are
rupture and global collapse. Moreover, the failure mode of the
E. Lai et al. Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 73 (2021) 104617

Fig. 7. The failure modes of the storage tank:(a) failure modes under single loading, (b)under coupling effect, (c) the accident consequence.

Fig. 8. The failure processes of the storage tank.

8
E. Lai et al. Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 73 (2021) 104617

simulation result is similar to the actual failure mode, which belongs to

the severe damage according to Fig. 7(c).

4.4. Displacement response of the storage tank

The displacement response is a critical way to evaluate the stability

of storage tanks. As shown in Fig. 9, the variations in the displacement of
the storage tank under the loading of the coupling effect, the blast, and
the fragment are compared with each other. It can be found that the
displacement of the storage tank continues to decrease as scaled distance
increases, and the damage to the storage tank with the coupling effect is
more severe than that of the blast loading or fragment loading. A hy­
pothetical case of adding separated blast loading and two types of
fragment loading is also included in the figure (square symbol) for
further comparison. It is found that the displacement of the storage tank
of the coupling effect takes a higher value than that of the blast loading
plus fragment. This demonstrates that the coupling effect is an
enhancing destruction effect instead of a linear superposition of an in­
dependent blast wave and fragments impact loading. However, it should
be noted that the analysis above does not include Z = 1.0 m kg− 1/3,
because the coupling effect has a higher tendency to cause the storage
Fig. 9. Displacement of the storage tank subjected to different loading
combinations.
tank rupture rather than displacement in this case.

4.5. The characteristics of energy absorption

Each layer of the storage tank gains initial energy after the coupling
effect is applied to the storage tank structure. The total energy of the

Fig. 10. The kinetic energy time curves of the storage tank under the coupling effect:(a) blast wave and end-cap fragment; (b) blast wave and tube section fragment.

Fig. 11. The internal energy time curves of the storage tank under the coupling effect: (a) blast wave and end-cap fragment, (b) blast wave and tube section fragment.

9
E. Lai et al.
Fig. 12. The energy-time curve of each layer of the storage tank subjected to the coupling effect (Z = 1, uimp = 150 m/s): (a) the kinetic energy, (b) the inter­
nal energy.
Fig. 13. Cumulative total energy for the storage tank under the coupling effect: (a) the coupling effect of blast and end-cap fragment, (b) the coupling effect of blast
and tube section fragment.
storage tank includes internal energy and kinetic energy. The internal
energy of the storage tank under the coupling effect increased gradually.
Finally, it reached a stable value leading to buckling deformation and
rupture of the tank. Another part of the energy is kinetic energy due to
the tank movement, which increased and then decreased until the tank
speed is reduced to zero. As shown in Fig. 10 and Fig. 11, the surge of
kinetic energy and the initial internal energy are dominant factors in the
large deformation, destruction, and instability failure of the tank. In
particular, Fig. 12 (solid lines represent the coupling effect of blast wave
and end-cap fragment, dashed lines represent the coupling effect of blast
wave and tube section fragment) shows the energy-time curve of each
layer of the storage tank subjected to Z = 1.0 and uimp = 150 m/s, it is
seen that the energy of the storage tank impacted region under the
coupling effect is higher than that of other layers.
Fig. 13 shows the cumulative total energy for the storage tank under
the coupling effect. It can be seen that the maximum total energy of the
storage tank is 7.52 × 107 J and 1.05 × 107 J, respectively, when only
subjected to blast wave or fragment loading, and the minimum total
energy is 1.05 × 105 J and 3.89 × 106 J, respectively. Whereas the
maximum and minimum total energy of the storage tank under the
coupling effect are 9.21 × 107 J and 4.61 × 106 J, respectively, and both
of them are higher than that subjected to single loading. This again
demonstrates that the coupling effect is an enhanced damage effect from
the point of view of energy. Moreover, by doing a comparative analysis
of the total energy of the tank under the coupling effect and single
loading, it is found that the relative contribution of the blast wave and
10
Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 73 (2021) 104617
fragment to coupling effect depends on scaled distance.
5. Conclusions
To investigative the coupling effect of blast waves and fragments, a
finite element model is built based on the characteristics of the accident
scenario. The coupling effect on the storage tank is initially revealed by
analyzing the dynamic responses, failure modes, and energy absorption
of the storage tank. The conclusions of the paper are as follows:
(1) The coupling effect of blast wave and fragment can lead to stress
concentration phenomenon, thereby resulting in multiple stress
peaks. The storage tank structure eventually failed because the
stress peak is far greater than the yield strength of the tank.
Moreover, the effective strain increases sharply with the increase
of stress during the coupling stage, which results in severe plastic
and global failure of the storage tank.
(2) Under the coupling effect of blast wave and fragment, three
damage levels can occur in the storage tank and the major failure
modes include a crack, a collapse, and a rupture. Disruption of the
storage tank is accompanied by a surge of kinetic energy and
internal energy.
(3) The displacement response and characteristics of storage tank
under blast and fragment loading show that the coupling effect
cannot be simply regarded as a linear superposition of an
E. Lai et al. Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 73 (2021) 104617

independent blast and fragment impact loading but an enhanced
damage effect.
(4) Scaled distance has profound effects on storage tank damage. The
larger scaled distance the lower the blast loading, yet the impact
velocity of the fragment also decreases with distance. Due to the
fast attenuation of explosion energy, fragment is the source of the
storage tank damage in the far-field explosion. Still, the quanti­
tative conclusions need further investigation.
Author contribution statement
En Lai: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing - Original Draft,
Writing - Review & Editing; Software, Formal analysis, Resources, Data
curation, Visualization. Jie Zhao: Writing - Review & Editing. Xiaofeng
Li: Writing - Review & Editing. Kun Hu: Writing - Review & Editing.
Guohua Chen: Writing - Review & Editing, Project administration,
Supervision, Funding acquisition.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
This article was funded by the Natural Science Foundation of China
(21878102) and the China Scholarship Council (202106150061).

Appendix A. Estimation of initial velocity of fragment projection

An expression for the initial projection velocity of fragments is estimated by taking the explosion moment as a polytropic process and solving the
energy transformation equation (Zhang and Chen, 2009). The initial velocity of fragment can be computed as follows:
√̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅
( ( )nf γ− 1 )̅
2p r r0
uf = ( 0 0 ) 1− (A1)
δf ρf nf γ − 1 ra

where p0 is the failure pressure of the vessel, p0 = α × Pd, α is the vessel working safety factor and a reasonable range is α = 0.9–1.1 (Hauptmanns,
2001a), Pd is the vessel design pressure; δf is the wall thickness of the vessel; ρf is the density of the vessel material; nf is shape coefficient of the
explosive vessel which equals to 2; γ is the specific heat ratio of LPG; r0 is the radius of the vessel; ra is the distance of blast overpressure decaying to
atmospheric pressure, calculated by the following formula: p0 × r0nf×γ = pa × ranf×γ, and pa is the atmospheric pressure.

Appendix B. Estimation of impact velocity of fragment

Since the dissipation of initial velocity is mainly related to air drag force, and the lift force can be ignored (Zhao et al., 2010) when the angle
between the lift direction and the trajectory of end-cap fragment exceeds 10◦ . Thus, this study only considers the influence of air drag force on the
impact velocity of the fragment.
The impact velocity can be obtained according to the kinetic energy theorem:
1 1 ( )
mf u2imp − mf u2f = − FD Rex + mf ghimp (B1)
2 2

in which
1
FD = ρa CD AD u2f (B2)
2

where mf is the mass of fragment; ump is the impact velocity of fragment; FD is the drag force; CD is drag coefficient, CD depends on geometry and
direction of the fragment movement, the value was 0.8 according to existing reports (Hauptmanns,2001a, 2001b; Lisi et al., 2015); AD is the fragment
surface normal projection; ρa is the density of air; g is the gravity acceleration; himp is the height of impact position.

References Hauptmanns, U., 2001b. A monte-carlo based procedure for treating the flight of missiles
from tank explosions. Probab. Eng. Eng. Mech. 16, 307–312. https://doi.org/
10.1016/S0266-8920(01)00023-6.
Chen, G.H., Zhao, Y.X., Xue, Y.Z., et al., 2020. Numerical investigation on performance of
He, Z.C., Weng, W.G., 2020. Synergic effects in the assessment of multi-hazard coupling
protective layer around large-scale chemical storage tank against impact by
disasters: fires, explosions, and toxicant leaks. J. Hazard Mater. 388, 121813,
projectile. J. Loss Prev. Process. Ind. 104351 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
10.1016/j.jhazmat.2019.121813.
jlp.2020.104351.
Hu, K., Chen, G.H., Zhou, C.L., et al., 2020. Dynamic response of a large vertical tank
Cozzani, Valerio, Gubinelli, Gianfilippo, Salzano, Ernesto, 2005. Escalation thresholds in
impacted by blast fragments from chemical equipment. Saf. Sci. 130, 104863.
the assessment of domino accidental events. J. Hazard Mater. 129 (1), 10–19.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2020.104863.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2005.08.012.
Jingmen Hongtu Special Aircraft Manufacturing CO., LTD., 2015. Introduction to
Gubinelli, Gianfilippo, Cozzani, Valerio, 2009a. Assessment of missile hazards:
transportable equipment. http://www.hkhongtu.com/product/diwenguanche.jsp.
identification of reference fragmentation patterns. J. Hazard Mater. 163 (2),
Sun, D.L., Jiang, J.C., Zhang, M.G., et al., 2016. Ballistic experiments on the mechanism
1008–1018. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2008.07.056.
of protective layer against domino effect caused by projectiles. J. Loss Prev. Process.
Gubinelli, Gianfilippo, Cozzani, Valerio, 2009b. Assessment of missile hazards:
Ind. 40, 17–28. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jlp.2015.11.020.
evaluation of the fragment number and drag factors. J. Hazard Mater. 161, 439–449.
Joosef, Leppänen, 2004. Experiments and numerical analyses of blast and fragment
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2008.03.116.
impacts on concrete. Int. J. Impact Eng. 31 (7), 843–860. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
Hauptmanns, U., 2001a. A procedure for analyzing the flight of missiles from explosions
ijimpeng.2004.04.012.
of cylindrical vessels. J. Loss Prev. Process. Ind. 14 (5), 395–402. https://doi.org/
Li, J.T., Huang, C., Ma, T., Huang, X.C., et al., 2019. Numerical investigation of
10.1016/S0950-4230(01)00011-0.
composite laminate subjected to combined loadings with blast and fragments.
Compos. Struct. 214, 335–347. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compstruct.2019.02.019.

11
E. Lai et al.
Lisi, R., Consolo, G., Maschio, G., et al., 2015. Estimation of the impact probability in
domino effects due to the projection of fragments. Process Saf. Environ. Protect. 93,
99–110. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psep.2014.05.003.
LSTC, 2018. LS-DYNA Keyword User’s Manual Version R11. Livermore Software
Technology Corporation.
Lu, S.Z., Wang, W., 2012. Study of destruction mechanism of floating-roof oiltank under
combustible gaseous explosion in a small scale experiment. Appl. Mech. Mater. 137,
65–71. http://10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMM.137.65.
Luccioni, B., Ambrosini, D., Danesi, R., 2006. Blast load assessment using hydrocodes.
Eng. Struct. 28, 1736–1744. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2006.02.016.
Marchand, K.A., Vargas, M.M., Nixon, J.D., 1992. The Synergistic Effect of Blast and
Fragments, AD-A260. Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio.
Ministry of Chemical Industry Development of The People’s Republic, 1992. Steel
Vertical Cylindrical Fixed Roof Storage Tank Series.
Ministry of Emergency Management of the People’s Republic of China, 2019.
Investigation report on the “3⋅21” extraordinary major explosion accident in
xiangshui (jiangsu province). https://www.mem.gov.cn/xw/bndt/201911/t20
191115_340724.shtml.
Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of The People’s Republic of China,
2018. Standard for Fire Prevention Design of Petrochemical Enterprises.
Nguyen, Q.B., Mebarki, A., Ami Saada, R., et al., 2009. Integrated probabilistic
framework for domino effect and risk analysis. Adv. Eng. Software 40 (9), 892–901.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.advengsoft.2009.01.002.
Pietersen, C.M., 1988. Analysis of the LPG-disaster in Mexico city. J. Hazard Mater. 20
(1), 85–107. https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-3894(88)87008-0.
Salzano, Ernesto, Anna, Basco, 2015. Simplified model for the evaluation of the effects of
explosions on industrial target. J. Loss Prev. Process. Ind. 37, 119–123. https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.jlp.2015.07.005.
Shandong Provincial Administration of Work Safety, 2017. Linyi Jinyu Petrochemical
Co., Ltd. “6⋅5” Tanker Leakage Major Explosion and Fire Accident Investigation
Report.
State Administration of Work Safety of China, 2010. Announcement of the state
administration of work safety on the “1⋅7” explosion and fire accident of the Lanzhou
12
Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 73 (2021) 104617
petrochemical branch of China national petroleum corporation. https://www.mem.
gov.cn/gk/gwgg/agwzlfl/tb_01/201001/t20100118_239216.shtml.
Van Den Berg, A.C., Lannoy, A., 1993. Methods for vapor cloud explosion blast modeling.
J. Hazard Mater. 34 (2), 151–171. https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-3894(93)85003-
W.
Wang, G.H., Wang, Y.X., Lu, W.B., et al., 2016. On the determination of the mesh size for
numerical simulations of shock wave propagation in near field underwater
explosion, 59, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apor.2016.05.011.
Wu, J.Y., Ji, C., Long, Y., et al., 2017. Dynamic responses and damage of cylindrical
shells under the combined effects of fragments and shock waves. Thin-Walled Struct.
113, 94–103. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tws.2017.01.009.
Xin, C.L., 2020. Handbook of Material Parameters for Finite Element Analysis. Beijing
Machinery Industry Press (in Chinese).
Yan, C., Zhai, X.M., Wang, Y.H., 2019. Numerical study on the dynamic response of a
massive liquefied natural gas outer tank under impact loading. J. Zhejiang Univ. -
Sci. A. 20 (11), 823–837. https://doi.org/10.1631/jzus.A1900172.
Yu, H.L., Jeong, David Y., 2016. Impact dynamics and puncture failure of pressurized
tank cars with fluid–structure interaction: a multiphase modeling approach. Int. J.
Impact Eng. 90, 12–25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijimpeng.2015.11.014.
Zhang, X.M., Chen, G.H., 2009. The analysis of domino effect impact probability
triggered by fragments. Saf. Sci. 47, 1026–1032. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
ssci.2008.11.005.
Zhang, C.L., Zhu, Xi, Hou, H.L., et al., 2014. Tests for combined damage effect of blast
waves and high-velocity fragments on composite sandwich plates. J. Vib. Shock 33
(15), 184–188. https://doi.org/10.13465/j.cnki.jvs.2014.15.032 (in Chinese).
Zhang, B.Y., Lia, H.H., Wang, W., 2015. Numerical study of dynamic response and failure
analysis of spherical storage tanks under external blast loading. J. Loss Prev. Process.
Ind. 34, 209–217. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jlp.2015.02.008.
Zhao, J., Chen, X.W., Jinn, F.N., et al., 2010. Depth of penetration of high-speed
penetrator with including the effect of mass abrasion. Int. J. Impact Eng. 37,
971–979. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijimpeng.2010.03.008.