• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.46-54
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• 2012

More than 70% of the accidents that occur on offshore installations stem from hydrocarbon explosions and fires, which, because they involve blast effects and heat, are extremely hazardous and have serious consequences in terms of human health, structural safety, and the surrounding environment. Blast barriers are integral structures in a typical offshore topside module to protect personnel and safety critical equipment by preventing the escalation of events caused by hydrocarbon explosions. Many researchers have shown the adequacy of the simple design tool commonly used by the offshore industry for the analysis and design of blast walls. However, limited information is available for corrugated blast wall design with explosion impact response characteristics. Therefore, this paper presents a parametric study on the explosion impact response characteristics of an offshore installation's stainless steel corrugated blast wall. This paperalso investigates and recommends design parameters for the structural design of a corrugated blast wall based on a nonlinear structural analysis of experiential results.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Advanced Composite Structures
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.38-44
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• 2015

In this paper, a finite element dynamic simulation study was performed to gain an insight about the blast wall test details for the offshore structures. The simulation was verified using qualitative and quantitative comparisons for different materials. Based on in-depth examination of blast simulation recordings, dynamic behaviors occurred in the blast wall against the explosion are determined. Subsequent simulation results present that the blast wall made of high energy absorbing high manganese steel performs much better in the shock absorption. In this paper, the existing finite element shock analysis using the LS-DYNA program is further extended to study the blast wave response of the corrugated blast wall made of the high manganese steel considering strain rate effects. The numerical results for various parameters are verified by comparing different material models with dynamic effects occurred in the blast wall from the explosive simulation.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.68 no.2
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• pp.237-245
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• 2018

This study proposes an empirical formulation to predict the maximum deformation of offshore blast wall structure that is subjected to impact loading caused by hydrocarbon explosion. The blast wall model is assumed to be supported by a simply-supported boundary condition and corrugated panel is modelled. In total, 1,620 cases of LS-DYNA simulations were conducted to predict the maximum deformation of blast wall, and they were then used as input data for the development of the empirical formulation by regression analysis. Stainless steel was employed as materials and the strain rate effect was also taken into account. For the development of empirical formulation, a wide range of parametric studies were conducted by considering the main design parameters for corrugated panel, such as geometric properties (corrugation angle, breadth, height and thickness) and load profiles (peak pressure and time). In the case of the blast profile, idealised triangular shape is assumed. It is expected that the obtained empirical formulation will be useful for structural designers to predict maximum deformation of blast wall installed in offshore topside structures in the early design stage.

• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.380-387
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• 2014

Piper Alpha disaster drew attention to the damage likely to arise from explosions and fires on an offshore platform. And great concerns have been increased to prevent these hazards. Blast wall is one of the passive safety systems; it plays a key part of minimizing the consequences. However, a buckling due to explosion loads is a factor which can reduce the strength of blast wall. The buckling often occurs between web and flange at the center of blast wall. This study aims to find a solution for reinforcing its strength by installing a flat plate at the spot where the buckling occurs. First of all, ANSYS finite element method is adopted to numerically compute the structural resistance characteristic of blast wall by using a quasi-static approach. Sequentially, the impact response characteristics of blast wall are investigated the effect on thickness of flat plate by using ANSYS/LS-DYNA. Finally, pressure-impulse diagrams (P-I diagram) are presented to permit easy assessment of structural response characteristics of stiffened blast wall. In this study, effective use is made to increase structural intensity. of blast wall and acquired important insights have been documented.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.130-137
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• 2012

Blast walls are integral structures at the typical offshore topside module to provide safety barriers for personnel and critical equipment against any blast loading and hydrocarbon explosions. The blast wall structures are usually configured with stainless steel. It can be referred as the good mechanical properties of the stainless steel against blast load, which features the characteristics of significant energy absorption and ductility. In this study, the proposed designs of corrugated panel are examined in order to determine the best design which satisfies the design criteria. The criteria on maximum deflection and stress are used to decide the best design. The effect of inclined angle of profile on deformation characteristics of blast wall is also performed. The numerical study was performed by using NX Nastran 7.5.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.281-288
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• 2014

As a gas explosion is the most fatal accident in shipbuilding and offshore plant industries, all safety critical elements on the topside of offshore platforms should retain their integrity against blast pressure. Even though many efforts have been devoted to develop blast-resistant design methods in the offshore engineering field, there still remain several issues needed to be carefully investigated. From a procedure for calculation of explosion design pressure, impulse of a design pressure model having completely positive side only is determined by the absolute area of each obtained transient pressure response through the CFD analysis. The negative pressure phase in a general gas explosion, however, is often quite considerable unlike gaseous detonation or TNT explosion. The main objective of this study is to thoroughly examine the effect of the negative pressure phase on structural behavior. A blast wall for specific FPSO topside is selected to analyze structural response under the blast pressure. Because the blast wall is considered an essential structure for blast-resistant design. Pressure time history data were obtained by explosion simulations using FLACS, and the nonlinear transient finite element analyses were performed using LS-DYNA.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.135-148
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• 2017

Topside areas on an offshore oil and gas platform are highly susceptible to explosion. A blast wall on these areas plays an important role in preventing explosion damage and must withstand the expected explosion loads. The uniformly distributed loading condition, predicted by Explosion Risk Analyses (ERAs), has been applied in most of the previous analysis methods. However, analysis methods related to load conditions are inaccurate because the blast overpressure around the wall tends to be of low-level in the open area and high-level in the enclosed area. The main objectives of this paper are to study the effects of applying different load applications and compare the dynamic responses of the blast wall. To do so, various kinds of blast pressures were measured by Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations on the target area. Nonlinear finite element analyses of the blast wall under two types of identified dynamic loadings were also conducted.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.755-771
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• 2014

Environmental changes, especially global climate change, are creating new challenges to the development of the Arctic regions, which have substantial energy resources. And attention to offshore structures has increased with oil and gas development. The structural impact response of an explosion-resistant profiled blast walls normally changes when it operates in low temperatures. The main objectives of this study are to investigate the structural response of blast walls in low temperature and suggest useful guidelines for understanding the characteristics of the structural impact response of blast walls subjected to hydrocarbon explosions in Arctic conditions. The target temperatures were based on the average summer temperature ($-20^{\circ}C$), the average winter temperature ($-40^{\circ}C$) and the coldest temperature recorded (approximately $-68^{\circ}C$) in the Arctic. The nonlinear finite element analysis was performed to design an explosion-resistant profiled blast wall for use in Arctic conditions based on the behaviour of material properties at low temperatures established by performing a tensile test. The conclusions and implications of the findings are discussed.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.66 no.6
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• pp.713-727
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• 2018

Thin-walled mental tubes under lateral crushing are desirable and reliable energy absorbers against impact or blast loads. However, the early formations of plastic hinges in the thin cylindrical wall limit the energy absorption performance. This study investigates the energy absorption performance of a simple, light and efficient energy absorber called the ring stiffened tube. Due to the increase of section modulus of tube wall and the restraining effect of the T-stiffener flange, key energy absorption parameters (peak crushing force, energy absorption and specific energy absorption) have been significantly improved against the empty tube. Its potential application in the offshore blast wall design has also been investigated. It is proposed to replace the blast wall endplates at the supports with the energy absorption devices that are made up of the ring stiffened tubes and springs. An analytical model based on beam vibration theory and virtual work theory, in which the boundary conditions at each support are simplified as a translational spring and a rotational spring, has been developed to evaluate the blast mitigation effect of the proposed design scheme. Finite element method has been applied to validate the analytical model. Comparisons of key design criterions such as panel deflection and energy absorption against the traditional design demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed design in blast alleviation.

• Architectural research
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.151-158
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• 2013

Offshore oil and gas process plants are exposed to hazardous accidents such as explosion and fire, so that the structural components should resist such accidental loads. Given the possibilities of thousands of different scenarios for the occurrence of an accidental hazard, the best way to predict a reasonable size of a specific accidental load would be the employment of a probabilistic approach. Having the fact that a specific procedure for probabilistic accidental hazard analysis has not yet been established especially for explosion and fire hazards, it is widely accepted that engineers usually take simple and conservative figures in assuming uncertainties inherent in the procedure, resulting either in underestimation or more likely in overestimation in the topside structural design for offshore plants. The variation in the results of a probabilistic approach is determined by the assumptions accepted in the procedures of explosion probability computation, explosion analysis, and structural analysis. A design overpressure load for a sample offshore plant is determined according to the proposed probabilistic approach in this study. CFD analysis results using a Flame Acceleration Simulator, FLACS_v9.1, are utilized to create an overpressure hazard curve. Moreover, the negative impulse and frequency contents of a blast wave are considerably influencing structural responses, but those are completely ignored in a widely used triangular form of blast wave. An idealistic blast wave profile deploying both negative and positive pulses is proposed in this study. A topside process module and piperack with blast wall are 3D FE modeled for structural analysis using LS-DYNA. Three different types of blast wave profiles are applied, two of typical triangular forms having different impulse and the proposed load profile. In conclusion, it is found that a typical triangular blast load leads to overestimation in structural design.