Resilience of Infill Walls in Petrochemical Facilities Subjected to Vapor Cloud Explosions

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

10-2023

Abstract

Petrochemical facilities are prone to catastrophic vapor cloud explosions, posing significant risks to personnel, infrastructure, and surrounding communities. In such events, the resilience of infill walls plays a critical role in mitigating the impact of explosions by confining blast waves and preventing structural collapse. As such, this paper investigates the resilience of infill walls in petrochemical facilities subjected to vapor cloud explosions, focusing on their ability to withstand extreme dynamic loads and to assess their downtime. The resilience of infill walls is quantified through their robustness which was assessed through a validated numerical simulation. The numerical model is developed using the concentrated plasticity approach, while the vapor cloud blast load is idealized using the bilinear shock wave recommended by different blast standards. Furthermore, a parametric investigation is presented to highlight the influence of different design parameters, namely, compressive strength and reinforcement ratio at different design scenarios. The findings of this research contribute to advancing the resilience of petrochemical facilities to minimize the facility downtime after a given hazard.

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