Combustion products toxicity risk assessment in an offshore installation

Products of a hydrocarbon fire accident have both chronic and acute health effects. They cause respiratory issues to lung cancer. While fire is the most frequent phenomenon among the offshore accidents, predicting the contaminants' concentration and their behavior are key issues. Safety measures design, such as ventilation and emergency routes based only on predicted contaminants' concentration seems not to be the best approach. In a combustion process, various harmful substances are produced and their concentration cannot be added. The time duration that any individual spends in different locations of an offshore installation also varies significantly. A risk-based approach considers the duration a person is exposed to contaminants at various locations and also evaluates the hazardous impacts. A risk-based approach has also an additivity characteristic which helps to assess overall risk. Through the current study, an approach is proposed to be used for risk assessment of combustion products dispersion phenomenon in a confined or semi-confined facility. Considering CO, NO2 and CH4 as the contaminants of concern, the dispersion of the substances over the layout of the facility after a LNG fire is modeled. Considering different exposure times for three major parts of the facility including the processing area, office area and the accommodation module, the risk contours of CO, NO2 and CH4 over the entire facility are developed. The additivity characteristic of the risk-based approach was used to calculate the overall risk. The proposed approach helps to better design safety measures to minimize the impacts and effective emergency evacuation planning. © 2013 The Institution of Chemical Engineers.