Nagyon bölcs gondolat, hogy nem akarod kipróbálni. Azért van némi különbség aközött, hogy a laboratóriumban kicsöppen egy kis LNG vagy pedig felrobbantanak egy hatalmas LNG tartályt.
Itt van James A. Fay professzor (MIT) tanulmánya, azt vizsgálja, hogy mi történne, ha a tenoristák léket robbantanának egy LNG-t szállító hajón. Egy ilyen hajón tipikusan 25.000 m³-es tartályokban van az LNG, egy tartályban 10,5 tonna LNG van.
A professzor vizsgálata 14.300 m³ LNG kiszabadulását és 3,3 perc alatti elégését tanulmányozza.
A végeredmény: egy nagyon nagy halászlé.

Spills and Fires from LNG Tankers in Fall River (MA)
By Professor James A. Fay, MIT

The fire that would ensue from a boat bomb attack on a tanker would be of unprecedented size and intensity. Like the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City, there exists no relevant industrial experience with fires of this scale from which to project measures for securing public safety. Lacking such experience, we must rely on scientific understanding to predict their characteristics, based upon laboratory and field experiments of much smaller fires.

The author has developed a mathematical model for the spills and fires from liquefied fuel marine tankers which is based upon published scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals (Fay, Model of Spills and Fires from LNG and Oil Tankers, Journal of Hazardous Materials, B96, 171-188, 2003). The purpose of this article is to apply this research to the case of Fall River (MA) harbor.

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Maximum Pool Size and Fire Duration

To illustrate the characteristics of such spills in Fall River harbor, we consider a typical spill of LNG. (The relevant spill parameters are listed in Table 1.) The LNG spill volume is 14,300 cubic meters or 3.8 million gallons. Provided the vessel hole area is greater than ten square meters, the maximum pool fire area is 180,000 square meters (44 acres) and radius is 340 meters (1115 feet), while the fire duration is 3.3 minutes.

Table 1: Physical parameters of a typical LNG tanker spill
Spill volume 14,300 cubic meters = 3.8 million gal.
Fire duration 3.3 minutes
Maximum pool area 180,000 square meters = 44 acres
Maximum pool radius 340 meters = 1115 feet
Average heat release rate 1,500,000 megawatts
Distance to average heat flux of 5 kilowatts per square meter 1100 meters = 3600 feet

The pool fire, initiated at the time of the explosion, grows in area in proportion to the time since initiation, reaching maximum extent at the end of the burning process. Maximum pool size for an LNG spill located at the proposed LNG terminal: the outer edge of pool fire extends to both east and west shores of the Taunton River. For a spill anywhere along the path of an LNG tanker approaching the terminal, the pool fire would reach Fall River shore. It is most certain that combustible buildings long the waterfront would be ignited by contact with the pool fire.

The extent of the pool fires, which spread to distances greater than the ship length in a short time, would make it impossible to move the stricken vessel away from the waterfront areas. The potential for retarding the pool spread is nonexistent.

Pool Fire Thermal Radiation:

Burning LNG emits thermal radiation that, if intense enough, can cause skin burns on humans exposed to the radiation and can ignite combustible materials on buildings. The more intense the radiation, the shorter is the exposure time needed to cause a skin burn or combustible material ignition.

For human skin exposure to flame thermal radiation, a thermal flux of 5 kilowatts per square meter will result in unbearable pain after an exposure of 13 seconds and second degree burns after an exposure of 40 seconds. Exposure to twice that level, 10 kilowatts per square meter, for 40 seconds is the threshold for fatalities (K.S.Mudan, Thermal radiation hazards from hydrocarbon pool fires, Progress in Energy Combustion Science, 10, 59-80, 1984). Wood can be ignited after 40 seconds exposure at a thermal flux of 5 kilowatts per square meter.

We have chosen a thermal flux of 5 kilowatts per square meter a a criterion for the limit for significant damage to humans and combustible materials and have calculated the distance from the spill site at which that flux would be experienced (These distances are based upon an analysis contained in Fay, Model of large pool fires, submitted to the Journal of Hazardous Materials). As listed in Table 1, this distance is 1100 meters (3600 feet or 0.68 mile) for an LNG spill.

For an LNG spill, the thermal radiation damage zone encloses 940 acres, including about 400 acres of land area in Fall River. Within this zone, extending 3600 feet from a spill site in the main channel of the Taunton River, skin burns to humans exposed for only a fraction of a minute will occur, and building fires can be induced. Beyond the shorefront, at 1600 feet from the spill site, where the thermal radiation flux is 10 kilowatts per square meter, fatalities can ensue.

One cannot exaggerate the thermal intensity of the LNG pool fire. It's average heat release rate is about twice the average thermal power consumption of all U.S. fossil fuel electric power plants.

Conclusion:

The analysis summarized in this report, based upon studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, sets forth the physical characteristics of the fires to be expected from a boat bomb attack on an LNG tanker in Fall River harbor. The major conclusions are:

The magnitude of the resulting liquid cargo pool fires are unprecedented in scale. There is no possibility of ameliorating the fire's effects, much less extinguishing it, during the short time (several minutes) of burnout.
At any point along the inner harbor route of ship travel from sea to berth, pool fire thermal radiation that can burn and even kill exposed humans, and ignite combustible buildings, will be experienced along and well inland from the waterfront.