Fire safety concerns on residential areas located adjacent to oil tanks

Edgar Pang, Wan Ki Chow

Research output: Journal article publicationJournal articleAcademic researchpeer-review

Abstract

Hong Kong is a dense urban city with very limited usable area. Flammable liquid storage tanks and LPG storage have to be placed near to the residential areas, highways, and flight paths. It is estimated that oil tank fire can go up to 700 MW when there is any accident in fuel storage areas. The heat flux emitted to the near residential estate would be as high as 17 kWm-2. Such a big fire would not only affect health and safety of the citizens, but also disrupt the operation of the whole city for a very long time. Therefore, hazard assessment of oil tank fire should not only include several small fire scenarios. Proper fire safety measures and provisions for big fires should be developed. These issues will be discussed in this article with simple empirical expression derived from fire dynamics. Advanced technologies, such as fire robots, are recommended to facilitate fighting against big fires.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)223-238
Number of pages16
JournalJournal of Applied Fire Science
Volume22
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2012

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Chemistry
  • General Chemical Engineering
  • Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality
  • Condensed Matter Physics

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Fire safety concerns on residential areas located adjacent to oil tanks'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this