The influence of climate change on the modeling of fire and explosion risk consequences in a City Gas Station (CGS)

City gas stations have an important role in safety planning and crisis management. The present study was aimed to investigate the effect of climate change on the fire and explosion hazard distance in a CGS station at Qazvin in 2018.

In this study, eight dominant climatic conditions of study province were investigated. The average of 3-year data in relation to atmospheric parameters was prepared from Qazvin Meteorological Organization. The review of risk assessment studies of the target and similar stations in previous years was followed by preparing topographic maps and process information. Then, the type and characteristics of the possible scenario were determined and the consequences of fire and explosion risk were simulated using PHAST software version 7.11. During the study, all ethical requirements were observed.

Climate change was effective on the outcome of fire and explosion risk at the CGS station, so that depending on the decreased and increased ambient temperature, the minimum (278.5 m) and maximum (321.321 m) flame length were obtained in winter and summer, respectively. In winter, the distance and danger zoneaffected by the explosion was reduced to 686 m. Also in this season, the flame length increased and the danger distance decreased to 9.4 m during day hours.

Increasing ambient air temperature, atmospheric stability, solar radiation flux, natural gas flow rate and the increased natural gas pressure inside the pipeline results in increased affected distance around the station. On the other hand, the increased relative humidity would cause to reduce the affected distance around the station.