On buckling of oil storage tank under nearby explosions and fire

Abstract

Evidence from past accidents in tank farms indicates that the most common causes of damage and failure are fire and explosions, and they inevitably lead to oil spills. This chapter describes typical tanks and tank farms and show that blast loads due to explosions and thermal loads due to fire have the potential of causing structural and/or functional damage in oil storage tanks, and even their failure and collapse. A small sample of accidents in tank farms involving fire/explosions is briefly summarized to illustrate mechanisms of oil spill and ignition that have occurred in the past. The mechanics of shock waves induced by explosions reaching a target tank is next discussed with quantitative results for an open-top tank with a wind girder. Shell buckling and the development of extended plasticity are emphasized. The thermo-dynamics of flames and heat transfer are shown to be useful tools to identify the temperature distribution in a target tank due to fire. Thermal buckling and post-buckling are emphasized for a tank with a fixed conical roof. Finally, some potential lines of research to advance the state of the art in understanding the structural mechanics of tanks under blast and temperatures, and to improve their structural design, are suggested.