Surviving the Flame: Ensuring Facilities Safety with Fire Survivability Study

Abstract Traditionally facilities blowdown is normally designed for emergency depressurization to 100 psig or half of design pressure, whichever is lower, within 15 minutes as per recommended by API RP 521 (referred to as legacy method in this paper). API RP 521 criterion was developed based on pool fire and applies to carbon steel vessel with wall thickness of 25.4mm and more. This paper addresses the adequacy of legacy API 521 guidance for application to cases which differs from the criterion to reduce the risk of catastrophic equipment failure especially for jet fire impingement scenarios. The process systems are studied in detail to bridge the gaps and resolve the safeguarding limitations for facilities in operations which were designed based on legacy method, if any. Furthermore, this paper also provides further insight on the design aspects to meet the blowdown requirement. The findings from the study will be elaborated and recommendations proposed to solve any problems will be discussed.