• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.22-33
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• 2023

The number of fire and explosion accidents caused by pyrolysis oil and gas at waste plastic pyrolysis plants is increasing, but accident status and safety conditions have not been clearly identified. Therefore, the aim of the study was to identify the risks of the waste plastic pyrolysis process and suggest appropriate safety management measures. We collected information on 19 cases of fire and explosion accidents that occurred between 2010 and 2021 at 26 waste plastic pyrolysis plants using the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency (KOSHA) database and media reports. The mechanical, managerial, personnel-related, and environmental problems within a plant and problems related to government agencies and the design, manufacturing, and installation companies involved with pyrolysis equipment were analyzed using the 4Ms of Machines, Management, Man, and Media, as well as the System-Theoretic Accident Model and Processes (STAMP) methodology for seven accident cases with accident investigation reports. Study findings indicate the need for establishing legal and institutional support measures for waste plastic pyrolysis plants in order to prevent fire and explosion accidents in the pyrolysis process. In addition, ensuring safety from the design and manufacturing stages of facilities is essential, as are measures that ensure systematic operations after the installation of safety devices.

• Explosives and Blasting
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.44-53
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• 2022

This study evaluates the applicability of the TNT Equivalency Method, Multi-Energy Method, and Baker-Strehlow-Tang (BST) Method, which are blast prediction models used to determine the overpressure of blast wave generated from vapor cloud explosion. It is assumed that the propane leaked from a propane storage container with a capacity of 2000 kg installed in an area where studio houses and shopping centers are concentrated causes a vapor cloud explosion. The equivalent mass of TNT calculated by applying the TNT Equivalency Method is found to be 4061 kg. Change of overpressure with the distance obtained by the TNT Equivalency Method, Multi-Energy Method, and BST Method is rapid and the magnitude of overpressure obtained by the TNT Equivalency Method and BST method is generally similar within 100 m from explosion center. As a result of comparing the overpressure observed in the actual vapor cloud explosion case with the overpressure obtained by applying the TNT Equivalent Method, Multi-Energy Method, and BST Method, the BST Method is found to be the best fit. As a result of comparing the overpressure with the distance obtained by each explosion prediction model with the damage criteria for structure, it is estimated that the structure located within 90 m from explosion center would suffer a damage more than partial destruction, and glass panes of the structure separated by 600 m would be fractured.

• Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.389-401
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• 2001

This paper proposes an abstraction mechanism of the low-level digital video features for the automatic retrievals of the explosion scenes from the digital video library. In the proposed abstraction mechanism, the regional dominant colors of the key frame and the motion energy of the shot are defined as the primary abstractions of the shot for the explosion scene retrievals. It is because an explosion shot usually consists of the frames with a yellow-tone pixel and the objects in the shot are moved rapidly. The regional dominant colors of shot are selected by dividing its key frame image into several regions and extracting their regional dominant colors, and the motion energy of the shot is defined as the edge image differences between key frame and its neighboring frame. The edge image of the key frame makes the retrieval of the explosion scene more precisely, because the flames usually veils all other objects in the shot so that the edge image of the key frame comes to be simple enough in the explosion shot. The proposed automatic retrieval algorithm declares an explosion scene if it has a shot with a yellow regional dominant color and its motion energy is several times higher than the average motion energy of the shots in that scene. The edge image of the key frame is also used to filter out the false detection. Upon the extensive exporimental results, we could argue that the recall and precision of the proposed abstraction and detecting algorithm are about 0.8, and also found that they are not sensitive to the thresholds. This abstraction mechanism could be used to summarize the long action videos, and extract a high level semantic information from digital video archive.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.55-60
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• 1998

In this study, we investigated the dust explosion characteristics by determining minimum ignition energy and explosion limit for this experiment, we used pine-tree dust which was used widely for the filler of thermosetting resin. The experiment was accomplished according to the variation of discharge gap, dust concentration, particle size and humidity. The result of this experiment are as follows; (1) The relation between the discharge gap and ignition energy was that ignition energy decreased according as the discharge gap became small, but increased when the discharge gap was below 4mm and suddenly became infinite when the discharge gap was below. So, we knew that this infinite value was limit discharge gap. (2) When the dust concentration increase and the particle size became microscopic it was easy to explore and in the same particle size, if the humidity increase the minimum ingnition energy decreased.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.49-55
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• 1997

Destruction phenomena of structure by gas explosion is due to the explosion pressure and heat. Explosion pressure is a kind of energy converted from the gas mixture explosion. In this paper, we tried to find the relationship between explosion characteristics and combustion heat of the hydrocarbon-oxygen mixtures. Experiment were carried out with the volume of $5916cm^3$ cylindrical explosion vessel. Hydrocarbon gases which used in this study were methane, ethylene, propane, and buthane Experimental parameter was the concentration of the gas mixtures. Explosion characteristics were measured with strain type pressure transducer through the digital storage oscilloscope. From the experimental result, it was found that explosion pressure depend upon the combustion heat.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.8-14
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• 2012

Hydrogen is considered to be the most important future energy carrier in many applications reducing significantly greenhouse gas emissions, but the explosion safety issues associated with hydrogen applications need to be investigated and fully understood to be applicable as the carrier. The risk associated with a explosion depends on an understanding of the impacts of the explosion, particularly the pressure-time history during the explosion. This work provides the effects of explosion parameters, such as specific heat ratio of burned and unburned gas, equilibrium maximum explosion pressure, and burning velocity, on the pressure-time history with flame growth model. The pressure-time history is dominantly depending on the burning velocity and equilibrium maximum explosion pressure of hydrogen-air mixture. The pressure rise rate increase with the burning velocity and equilibrium maximum explosion pressure. The specific heat ratio of unburned gas has more effect on the final explosion pressure increase rate than initial explosion pressure increase rate. However, the specific heat ratio of burned gas has more influence on initial explosion pressure increase rate. The flame speeds are obtained by fitting the experimental data sets. The flame speeds for hydrogen in air based on our experimental data is very low, making a transition from deflagration to detonation in a confined space unlikely under these conditions.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.9 no.3 s.28
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• pp.9-14
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• 2005

To estimate the explosion characteristics of converted gas, the study was examined into effects of altering oxygen concentration and adding hydrogen. From the result of the experiment, as the concentration of converted gas and hydrogen were increased at $21\%$ oxygen concentration, the lower explosion limit was low. Minimum explosion oxygen concentration was $6\%$. Maximum explosion pressure of converted gas was $4.61 kg_f/cm^2$, now Maximum explosion pressure rising velocity was $130.75 kg_f/cm^2/s$ at converted gas concentration $40\%$. Also, minimum ignition energy was 0.13 mJ at converted gas concentration $50\%$.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.26-32
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• 1999

We had investigated combustion pro야$\pi$ies of rice bran dusts. Decomposition of rice bran d dusts with temperature were investigated using DSC and the weight loss according to t temperature using TGA in order to find the thermal hazard of rice bran dusts, and the p properties of dust explosion in variation of their dust with the same particle size. Using H Hartman's dust explosion apparatus which estimate dust explosion by electric ignition after m making dust disperse by compressed air, dust explosion experiments have been conducted by v varying concen$\sigma$ation and size of rice br뻐 dust. According to the results for thermodynamic stability of rice bran dust, there are little change of initiation temperature of heat generation 때d heating value for used particle size. But i initiation temperature of heat generation decreased with high heating rate whereas d decomposition heat increased with particle size. Also, the explosion pressure was increased as t the ignition energy increased and average maximum explosion pressure was 13.5 kgv'cnt for 5 BJ/60 mesh and 1.5 뼈Ie미 dust concentration.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.1-9
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• 1995

The mechanism of various spherical particles formation from wide range of tribo-systerns is suggested and deduced by the action of micro-explosion on the basis of the thermally-activated wear theory, in which the flash temperature at contact could be reached clearly upto the material molten temperature due to the secondary activation energy from the exothermic reactions involving lubricant thermo-decomposition, metals oxidation, hydrogen reactions and other possible complex thermo-reactions at the contacts. Various shapes of spherical particles generated from the tribosystem can be explained by the toroidal action of micro-explosion accompanied with the complex thermo-chemical reactions at the contact surfaces or sub-surfaces.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.49-56
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• 2002

In this case study, results of the explosion accident at MEK-PO factory were analysed by using the consequence analysis of quantitative hazard assessment and the explosion energy, the burst pressure of vessel, and overpressures at the explosion center and at 300m distance from the explosion center were estimated, respectively. As a result, we found that a cause of accident was the runaway reaction of product(MEK-PO) because of the molecular expansion in vessel and that the possibility of the runaway reaction was classified the mechanical failure(the obstacle of refrigerator or the shutdown valve), design error, and operating error by lack of thermochemical knowledge. Also, the evasive action to prevent accident was suggested.