Pressure Vessel Burst Directional Effects

Pressure vessel burst (PVB) is a class of explosion for which there are hazards at virtually all chemical processing facilities. PVBs present both airblast and fragmentation hazards. Blast prediction methods specific to PVBs were first developed in the 1970s and revised blast curves were published in 1995. The published blast curves were developed for spherical vessel bursts, whereas most pressure vessels in use in industry are cylindrical. Blast effects around a bursting cylindrical vessel are not uniform as with a spherical vessel. The blast to the side of a cylindrical vessel is stronger than off the ends, creating non-circular pressure contours. The directional effects diminish with distance as the expanding shock wave approaches a spherical shape. A correlation was developed in the 1970s to account for directional effects using high explosive test data, the best available resource at the time. Like all test programs, pressure transducers extended to limited distances from the explosive charge, yet the data are often extrapolated to a far greater distance. This paper presents the results of recent work on directional effects specific to bursting cylindrical pressure vessels and provides new correlations for blast overpressure and impulse for a range of vessel geometries and burst conditions. The results can be used to predict the airblast hazards from cylindrical PVBs over the range of standoff distances for which directional effects exist.