Maximum Missile Velocity From Boiling-Liquid Expanding-Vapor Explosions (BLEVE) Using Exergy Analysis

One of the hazards from a boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion (BLEVE) is the formation and projection of missiles. The design of safeguards for protection from missiles, such as barricades or buffer zones, requires an estimate of the maximum kinetic energy of the missiles. In this paper we demonstrate the use of exergy analysis to estimate the maximum available work of the explosion, and then use a modified Gurney method to estimate the partitioning of exergy into the kinetic energy of the saturated vapor, the saturated liquid, and the missiles. The advantage of using exergy analysis to evaluate the maximum work of an explosion is that exergy is a state variable: its value depends only on the initial conditions of the high pressure fluid and the specification of the dead state. The advantage of using the Gurney method for evaluating the kinetic energy of missiles is that it does not require the selection of an equation of state for the high pressure fluid. The methodology is illustrated for several pure component fluids, and is then compared with other estimation methods.Copyright © 2012 by ASME