Large pool fires (especially in tank farms-of-substantial-diameter) are not de facto, "non-exposure threats". A lower regard, but not exclusively, can be held for fires in diked containment areas. Proximity of exposed tanks, without even considering wind-aided plume tilt, can make the exposed tanks and their appurtenances vunerable. This does not even consider the possibilities of escalation from crude boilover. Burn down can take a couple of days for a full-surface fire in a topped off tank; that is a lot of time to be exposing surrounding equipment. Even burn down, let alone attack operations, warrants diligent protection of tanks-and-appurtenances which are too close for comfort: occassional-to-continual cooling is expected for equipment, depending upon its proximity to the exposure.
If someone were designing for such exposure scenarios, I would highly recommend not leaving this responsibility to someone who looked up the answer in a standard, or even someone who is intimately familiar with the process department of their refinery/storage facility. This is a specialized field requiring knowledge that few people acquired, and the amount of misinformation is staggering...especially considering the large-scale consequences. It is fair to say that very little tactical efforts will make up for poor strategic decisions when dealing with large pool fires. A lot of large-diameter flammable/ combustible liquid tank-farms are over-exposed / underprotected, without stakeholders realizing it. This is definitely one area where we can get burned, but fatal. Fire is highly non-linear, and at scales > 60 ft, the exposure from these tank fires simply is not in the event horizon of most process, mechanical, civil, electrical engineers' consciousness. For adequate suppression and exposure protection, we should consult with professionals having a successful track record (there are sufficient professional without successful track records [no aspersions cast upon these debators] in this highly specialized and not-well understood arena) with hands-on extinguishment of large, full-surface flammable/combustible liquid fires. scot deal excelsior fire _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list [email protected] http://fireball.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum For Technical Assistance, send an email to: [email protected] To Unsubscribe, send an email to:[email protected] (Put the word unsubscribe in the subject field)
