Multicomponent hydrocarbon pool fire: Analytical modelling and field application

In analyzing pool fires and the potential for domino effects, the evaluation of thermal radiation and issues of interplant spacing, employees' safety zones, fire wall specifications are to be addressed on the basis of a proper consequence analysis. Fire evolution can behave in different ways, according to the characteristics of the liquid pool and interactions with the surroundings. We face the modelization of an atypical scenario, consisting of a pool fire of coal tar, a multi-component mixture, with hydrocarbon components characterized by a broad range of normal boiling points, under semi-confined geometry. Analytical solution of energy and mass balances is approached by considering "hydrocarbon key components". A peculiar novelty of the approach is that the physical model of the pool is solved to provide a description of a variable heat emitting flame area, as a function of the vertical flame axis, up to a limiting value. In order to evidence the effective potentialities of the method, starting from a real accident in a coal industry, a detailed validation of the approach is performed making reference to a coal tar fire scenario embedded in a rectangular bund.