Dinâmica dos fluidos computacional aplicada a modelagem de incêndio e radiação térmica

Abstract

The storage of flammable products and fuels is a common activity and widely used in several locations such as fuel terminals, carrier bases, bus garages, industrial and petrochemical plants, chemical and petrochemical industries, refineries and industries in general. This type of activity is related to the production, distribution, supply or consumption of flammable products and fuels. The storage of liquid fuels in large, médium and small quantities in tanks at atmospheric pressure can be highlighted. This storage takes place in facilities that depending on their size, may be located in industrial areas such as large petrochemical plants or mixed use areas between companies and homes such as carrier bases and bus garages. Storing flammable liquids and volatile fuels at environmental temperature offers the risk of fire causing accidents due to leakage of the inventory contained in tanks. The types of fires that can occur due to this leak are pool fire, cloud fire and fireball. The occurrence of fire has among its physical consequences the emission of thermal radiation that can cause injury or even death to people affected. Given this fact, the storage activity of flammable substances and volatile fuels at environmental temperature is classified as a hazardous activity, where, according to the considered risk level, it is necessary to evaluate the consequences of thermal radiation emitted by a possible fire scenario. Nowadays, risk analysis studies conducted for fire assessment generally use so-called semi-empirical modeling. In these models fire is usually modeled as a solid and simplified correlations and equations are employed to find the distances corresponding to the thermal radiation levels of interest and thus determine the safe distance between sensitive receivers (homes, schools, gyms, hospitals, etc.) and the location of the possible fire scenario. This dissertation analyzes the application of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to fire modeling and propagation of thermal radiation emitted by it. Using the CFD program to fire modeling Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS), fuel pool fire modeling and simulations in tank and containment basin are performed. Distances reached by the levels of thermal radiation intensities of interest are found and the application of CFD for the study of thermal radiation emitted by pool fires is evaluated.