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CFD simulation to predict the thermal radiation of large LNG pool fires

Conference Paper · June 2011

DOI: 10.13140/2.1.1181.0565

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 CFD simulation to predict the thermal radiation of large LNG pool fires

S. Schälike1,2∗ , K.-D. Wehrstedt1 , A. Schönbucher2,

1
Division 2.2 ”Reactive Substances and Systems”
BAM Federal Institute for Material Research and Testing
Unter den Eichen 87, 12205 Berlin, Germany
2
Institut for Chemical Engineering I
University Duisburg-Essen
Universitätsstr. 5-7, 45141 Essen, Germany

Abstract

Flame temperature (T ), surface emissive power (SEP ) of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) pool fires (d = 1 m, 6.1 m,
30 m) are investigated by CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) simulation and compared with experimental results.
Time averaged flame temperatures of T = 1320 K, T = 1298 K and T = 1281 K are obtained. Surface emissive power
(SEP ) of 55 kW/m2 , 130 kW/m2 and 230 kW/m2 are predicted.

1 Introduction Flame temperatures and axial velocity decreases due to

continued air entrainment.
Accidental fires in process industries often occur as
_. _
pool fires which are hazardous to people and adjacent Qtop Ttop
objects due to thermal radiation, largely sooting plumes
and formation of other combustion products (1; 2; 3).
soot-
Pool fires are turbulent non-premixed fires burning over parcels (Tsp)
a horizontal pool. In addition to experimental pool 80% N2
_
fire tests numerical investigation of those fires using HP
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) codes becomes hot spots
more important. The Surface Emissive Power (SEP ) is
a key parameter to characterize thermal radiation emitted SEP SEP _
Ths H
by a fire. Beside the SEP the temperatures T and u ~~ 100 - 1000 cm/s
irradiances E of pool fires are of particular interest. To _. u
predict the thermal radiation from LNG (d = 1 m, 6.1 m, Qba,tot _
Hpul
30 m) pool fires CFD methods are used and the CFD
results are compared with experiments. expansion of
uF
combustion products
_
ignitable volume VZ
fuel-parcels (T fb) Hcl

2 Characteristics of pool fires air entrainment pyrolysis gas

(liquid) d fuel vapor
fuel pool/tank (uf ~
~ 1cm/s)
Pool fires are turbulent non-premixed fires burning over
a horizontal pool (4; 5; 6). Pool fires can be divided
into two- or three non-continuous zones, but until now Fig. 1: Physical processes in pool fires
these length can be calculated with large uncertainty
only. Directly over the pool rim existes a luminous clear
burning zone (Hcl in Fig. 1), which is not covered with
black smoke and has beside hot spots the largest surface
emissive power SEPclma of a fire. In the pulsation zone 3 Thermal radiation models
(Hpul in Fig. 1) the flame front is still connected to the
flame basis but it is a less efficient combustion zone of A widely used thermal radiation model is the Solid
a flame. Due to large eddies of intaken air radial and Flame Model (SFM, Fig. 2) (7), from which several
axial pulsation occurs and formation of black soot can modefications exists (8). In the classical case a flame
be observed. In the top region the plume zone (HP in is postulated as a cylinder with circular base, with a
Fig. 1) a non-continuous segregated flame is observed. homogeneous temperature of T = 1173 K on flame
surface, a emissivity of f = 0.95 for hydrocarbon pool
∗
Corresponding author: stefan.schaelike@bam.de fires a specific emission of 100 kW/m2 is obtained by
Proceedings of the European Combustion Meeting 2011, the following equation:
Cardiff, UK, 28 June - 2 July, 2011
 ma 4 4
SEP SF M = σ(T − T a ) (1) E = ϕE,F τat αr SEP (3)
Beside the semi-empirical models according to Mu-
dan (10), Fay (5) and Raj (6) especially the model
x postulated
OSRAMO II (11; 12) and OSRAMO III (3; 11) which
cylindric flame
contain mainly quantities with physical meaning are to
SEPma SFM
be noted.

T 4 CFD simulation
In CFD simulation a domain is represented by a 3-D
hexahedral block structured mesh (Fig. 4) (13; 14).
The fuel is assumed to be already evaporated and the
fuel vapor entering the domain from inlet has a constant
temperature of T = Tb and an experimentally determined
constant mass flux (15). The inlet is surrounded by a
y low rim and an adiabatic ground area. The remaining
pool boundary conditions are set as “pressure outlet” in a
relative wide distance from the pool to achieve open
Fig. 2: SFM:The flame is approximated by a boundary conditions. With increasing axial und vertical
cylinder distance from the pool cell size increases.

A different semi-empirical thermal radiation model is

the point source model, with which the irradiance can
be calculated directly (PSM respectively API 521, Fig.3)
(9):
f rad AP (−∆hc ) ṁ00
f,max (1−e
−kβd
)
EP SM (∆y/d) = 16(∆y/d)2 , (2)
f ür ∆y/d > 4

x
Fig. 4: Block structured grid for simulation of LNG
pool fires

The time step vary depending on sufficient conver-

Dy
AP
0 containing up to 21 species and elementary reac-
d AE y
pool
Fig. 3: PSM: Flame is approximated as point source
on flame axis
The flame approximated by a sphere with
radius r → 0 hence the application of the model is
bounded to the far field. The irradiance is connected to
SEP over the view factor ϕE,F , atmospheric transmis-
sion τat and the absorptivity of the receiver element αr
by:
2
gence from t = 10−6 s to t = 10−4 s depending on
Courant-Friederich-Levy (CFL) criterion. Large Eddy
Simulation (LES) is used for modeling turbulence (16;
17). In the pool fire simulations presented here, the
following sub models are used:
• Assumed pdf approach with laminar flamelets
tions (18; 19; 20).
• Moos-Brookes soot model (21).
• Discrete Ordinates model for radiation (22; 23;
24).
The coupling between thermal radiation and soot re-
actions is described by a weigthed sum of gray gases
approach (25; 26).
The governing equations were solved with an iter-
ativ solution method with either coupled or segregated
solvers, e.g. the pressure correction methods SIMPLE
(Semi-Implicit Methods for Pressure Linked Equations).
The starting and boundary conditions are listed in Tab.1- 5 Results and Discussion
2.
5.1 Flame temperature
Tab. 1: Starting conditions of CFD pool fire With CFD simulation instantaneous temperature fields of
simulation LNG pool fires can be predicted. In both fields (Fig. 5-
starting conditions 6) pulsation of the flame is visible. Inside the observed
quantity value vortices a significant higher instantaneous temperatures
mass fraction N2 0.743 (1800 K < T < 2161 K) then in the adjacent area.
mass fraction O2 0.231 (1400 K < T < 1800 K).
mass fraction Ar 0,012
mass fraction CO2 0.001
mass fraction H2 O 0,013
pa 1013.25 hPa
p − pa 0
flow velocity ux = uy = uz = 0
temperature 298 K
gravitational acceleration 9.81 m/s2
mixing fraction f f=0

Tab. 2: Boundary conditions of CFD pool fire

simulation
boundary conditions

upper end face p = pa

+ lateral area 298 K
Fig. 5: CFD predicted instantaneous temperature
“pressure outlet” open boundary conditions
field of a LNG pool fire (d = 30 m) t = t0
lower end face adiabatic
+ pool rim heat flux to pool rim
“wall” q̇ = 0

pool experimentally determined

“mass flow inlet” mass burning rate
p = pa , T = Tb

The main purpose is to determine the temperature T ,

Surface Emissive Power (SEP ). The simulations are
started with an two equation model based on the eddy
viscosity hypothesis like k− with a buoyancy correction
term to reach a certain flame heigth which refers to the
developing stage of the fire. Assuming the flame to be
developed, further simulation is continued by using LES.
CFD simulation is carried out with commercial software
ANSYS
FLUENT 12 (27).

Fig. 6: CFD predicted instantaneous temperature

field of a LNG pool fire (d = 30 m) t = t0

The vortices cool down in the higher flame region

where temperatures of T < 1400 K are obtained. The
maximum temperatures accure above the pool rim, but
3
not directly at the center line. The simulation shows 5.2 Surface emissive power
broken off vortices with temperatures T < 650 K until
The SEP is a derived quantity and its value depends on
a heights of 90 m.
flame surface and flame shape. Especially the value of
With CFD simulation also time averaged flame tem-
the flame height, but also atmospheric transmission and
peratures can be predicted. The maximum time averaged
general experimental errors are import. The SEP of a
temperature is located at center line above the pool
fire can be obtained by CFD simulation in three ways. In
rim (Fig. 7). The time averaged maximum flame
the first way the SEP is predicted by radiative heat flux
temperatures of LNG pool fires decrease with increasing
qout leaving each grid cell placed on the flame surface
pool diameter (Tab. 3).
AF . The value of qout can by obtained by calculating the
component of radiative flux qrad that is normal (~n⊥AF )
to the cell surfaces which define the flame surface AF :

SEP = qout = (1 − t ) qin + t σT 4 , (4)

with qin
Z
qin = L ~s · ~n dΩ . (5)
s·~
~ n<0

To get the SEP at the flame surface it is necessary

to determine a surface AF which presents a realistic
shape of the flame. One possibility is an isosurface of
temperature (T > Ta ).
The procedure can be described as follows:
• An instantaneous flame surface AF,CF D is defined
as an isosurface of temperature (interior wall).
• The CFD calculated heat flux qout (t) is averaged
Fig. 7: CFD predicted time averaged temperature over the isosurface AF,CF D for each time interval
field of a LNG pool fire (d = 30 m) ∆t (an usual value is ∆t = 0.1 s) to evaluate area
averaged heat flux < qout (t) >.
• The heat flux < qout (t) > is averaged over the
Tab. 3: Maximum time averaged flame temperatures steady burning time (t ≈ 10 s) which results in a
of LNG pool fires time averaged heat flux < q out (t) > ≡ SEP CF D .
pool diamter [m] T max [K] It is assumed that a steady state burning time of
10 s shows real burning behaviour.
1 1320
6.1 1298
30 1281

Tab. 4: Maximum time averaged flame temperatures

of JP-4 pool fires
pool diamter [m] T max [K]
2 1300
8 1280
16 1250
25 1230
Fig. 8: CFD predicted instantaneous SEP for an
isosurface T = 500 K of a LNG pool fire (d = 30
The time averaged flame temperaturs of LNG pool m)
fires are up to 50 K higher, then those of other hydro-
carbon pool fires e.g. JP-4 (Tab. 4). Fig.8 shows the instantaneous SEP , depending in
general on pool diameter and fuel, calculated by using
4
an isosurface of temperature T = 500 K for LNG pool parison with other hydrocarbon pool fires. This facts
fire. can be explained by the mass burning rates which are
Time averaged SEP is determined: SEP = 55 kW/m2 in comparison with other hydrocarbon pool fires much
(d = 1 m), SEP = 130 kW/m2 (d = 6.1 m) and higher caused by the temperature difference between
SEP = 230 kW/m2 (d = 30 m). The maximum boiling point and ambient temperature. To determine the
specific emissivity SEPmax accounts for 301 kW/m2 maximum of SEP as a function of the pool diameter
thus being much higher then time averaged SEP . The further investigation with pool diamters d > 35 m should
be done.
JP-4 SEPOSRAMO II (JP-4)
SEPCFD (JP-4)
300 Hägglund
SEPSFM (JP-4) Adknowledgements
Kerosin SEPLNG (expected) The authors thank Max-Buchner-Forschungsstiftung
Hoftijzer for financial support.
250
Shokri

Jap. Soc. Safety Eng. LaTable

SEP [kW/m²]

200
LNG
May

150
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6 Conclusion
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