Proceedings of the Thirty-second (2022) International Ocean and Polar Engineering Conference
Shanghai, China, June 5–10, 2022
Copyright © 2022 by the International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers (ISOPE)
ISBN 978-1-880653-81-4; ISSN 1098-6189

www.isope.org

Numerical Simulation on Advection-diffusion of Leaked Gas from Oil Storage Tanks
Yonghui Wei, Wenfeng Wu, Xuxiu Wang, Yongyan Chen
School of Naval Architecture and Maritime, Zhejiang Ocean University.
Zhoushan, Zhejiang, China

gas leakage. Their simulation results are verified by using theexperimental data on hydrogen jets. Kountouriotis et al (2014)
characterized the gas diffusion for the gasoline with different
components subjected to different influencing factors (wind speed, winddirection, temperature, leakage location, etc.) by using the STAR-CDsoftware. Huang et al (2016) used FLUENT software to simulate theleakage of petroleum gas from an inner floating roof tank, and found thatthe smaller the wind speed, the higher the quality of petroleum gas
concentration. Hao et al (2019) used CFD technology to simulate theeffects of the location of the leakage hole and wind speed on thepetroleum gas leakage from a floating roof tank, and the results showedthat the location of leakage hole and wind speed would have a significant
influence on the accumulation location and diffusion range of petroleum
gas after leakage. However, few researches on the leakage its advectiondiffusion behavior for a tank group.

ABSTRACT
It is of great significance to study the behavior of leaked petroleum gas
from oil storage tanks for the safety of the oil reserve base and theprevention and control of the environmental pollution. In this study, thecomputational fluid dynamics (CFD) software, FLUENT, is used tomodel the advection-diffusion behavior of the petroleum gas leaked froman oil storage tank surrounding by an array of tanks in a reserve base. Inthe simulation, the wind condition is verified by a wind tunnel
experimental data. The location of the gas leakage is set on the top of achosen tank and the leakage from different tank in the array is consideredin the simulation. It is found that the tank array considerably alters thewind flow, resulting in a less significant advection-diffusion effect on
the petroleum gas leaked from downstream tank than upstream tank.
This reveals the importance of optimal deployment of the oil storage
tanks and, if necessary, a further consideration of the mitigation plan for
specific tanks.

It is understood that the surrounding tanks would considerably alter thewind flow around the leaked tank. The characteristics of the gas behavior
would be different from those have been explored in literature. In thisresearch, a numerical simulation is carried out to look at theaerodynamics associated gas leaked from an array of external floating
top tanks. The leakage is constrained to occur on the top of one of thetank in the array. But different leaked tank would be considered.
Considering the different property of the oil gas compared with the air,a volume of fluid method is used in the CFD software FLUENT. The
work present in this paper is a preliminary attempt. The accuracy of thenumerical results needs further investigation. Further details will bepresented in the conference.

KEY WORDS: CFD; oil storage tanks; petroleum gas leakage;hydrocarbon volume fraction; advection-diffusion.
INTRODUCTION
From 2003, China began to build oil reserve bases and the first national
petroleum reserve base, Zhenhai Base, was constructed and started
operating in October 2006. After more than ten years of furtherdevelopment, the base currently consists of 12 reserve base with an
overall capacity of 60+ million tons. Following a rapid expansion of theoil reserve bases, the safety of the oil reserve is increasingly recognized,
especially the air pollution, risk of poisoning and explosion caused by
the leakage of petroleum gas. To mitigate the risk, the behavior of theleaked gas needs to be well understood.

THEORETICAL MODEL
Numerical model setting
The prototype of tank group is designed according to the GB50742014(2014) and GB50160-2008(2014). In the numerical simulation, thetank group is placed in a computational domain of 1200 m * 700 m * 70m and the computational mesh is generated using the GAMBIT software.
Two rows of cylinder storage tanks with a diameter of 60 m and heightof 17.5 m are placed side by side following the wind direction. The

Both numerical and experimental approaches have been attempted tocharacterize the aerodynamic behavior of the leaked gas. Song et al(2008) conducted a CFD simulation and discussed the distribution andformation of gas concentration. Kim et al. (2013) used the FLACS
software to simulate and analyse the gas explosion due to the hydrogen906