Abstract:
Full-surface fire on fuel storage tank emits high radiation heat transfer. As a fire protection
strategy, the water curtain cooling system is activated to reduce the temperature on the
adjacent tank surface. Therefore, the present work predicts and analyses the radiation heat
flux and the maximum flame temperature of different types of fuels. Further, this analyses
the effect of fuel total mass on radiation heat flux and maximum flame temperature and
observes the effect of distance between two tanks on radiation heat flux distribution. The
relationship between water cooling flow rate and outlet water temperature that absorbed
radiation heat flux has been studied. The study has been conducted by using the
Consequence modeling software trial version. The modeling setup of the tank is 17 m in
height with 65 m inner diameter, and the meteorological data used are 5.4 m/s wind speed
with north wind direction at atmospheric pressure in order to imitate the worst-case fire
scenario. The results reveal that the gasoline fuel emitted the highest heat flux value of
11.03 kW/m2 and the raw gasoline sample emits the lowest heat flux value of 9.14 kW/m2.
Furthermore, the total mass of the fuel shows no effect on the maximum flame temperature
of 958.51°C. According to the findings, the critical tank distancing is 36 m and thus the
appropriate tank distancing of 40 m is highly recommended by the standard. The result
shows that the water cooling rate of 4.1 lpm/m2 is an excellent practice of water cooling to
cool down the temperature of the fuel tank which is exposed to radiation heat flux.
