Vapor cloud explosion prediction methods - Comparison of TNO multi-energy (ME) and Baker-Strehlow-Tang (BST) models in terms of vulnerability of structural damage caused by an explosion

Vapor cloud explosions (VCE) cause considerable hazard in the chemical and petrochemical industries. They generate damaging levels of overpressure; the potential risk for human injury or death, damage to buildings and associated critical equipment becomes a concern. Predicting the possible consequences associated to vapor cloud explosions is important to ensure the safe design of existing and new installations. The accuracy of the assessments of such explosions is improved by carrying out experiments and by using theoretical models. To assess explosion hazards and to ultimately design safer structures several modeling approaches have been developed in order to estimate the air blast parameters at any given distance from a possible explosion source. Estimation of the overpressures that are generated from vapor cloud explosions is typically done via either simplified (empirical) models, phenomenological models or sophisticated computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models. This study includes a brief discussion on vapor cloud explosions and the prediction methods. The focus of this paper is on two of the most frequently used simplified prediction methods; the TNO Multi-energy (ME) model and the Baker- Strehlow-Tang (BST) model. The present study investigates the differences between the two methods and evaluates them in terms of resulting structural response and damage vulnerability caused by an explosion.