Computational fluid dynamics simulation of liquefied petroleum gas leak explosion diffusion in spherical tank area and vapor cloud explosion flow field in petrochemical control room

Abstract This study investigated the diffusion of leaked liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and analyzed the load distribution characteristics of a petrochemical control room under a vapor cloud explosion (VCE) flow field based on the ANSYS/Fluent software. The results showed that the leaked LPG tended to accumulate near the ground. High wind speed accelerated the propagation of the leaked LPG cloud along the leaked direction and accelerated the dilution of the leaked LPG in the side direction. Besides, the existence of obstacles can significantly increase the gas cloud concentration near the obstacles. The nonuniform concentration field generated by leakage accidents can initiate detonation with relatively low ignition energy. In sparsely obstructed environments, the explosive behavior followed the classic open‐space gas cloud explosion pattern, where peak overpressure decreased with distance. The peak overpressure during explosions increased markedly with more obstacles, demonstrating that complex obstructions substantially elevated the risk of explosion accidents. The load distribution across control room walls exhibits significant nonuniformity in both temporal and spatial dimensions. The statistical analysis on historical maximum load distributions at different wall positions was conducted, employing bivariate quadratic polynomial fitting to derive a simplified calculation formula, which can be applied to analyze load distribution patterns across control room walls.