A Study on Classification of Explosion Hazardous Area for Facilities using Lighter-than-Air Gases

There have been controversies over whether explosion hazardous area(EHA) should be classified for facilities which use lighter-than-air gases such as city gas, hydrogen and ammonia. Two view points are confronting each other: an economic piont of view that these gases are lighter than air and disperse rapidly, hence do not form EHA upon release into the atmosphere, and a safety point of view that they are also inflammable gases, hence can form EHA although the extent is limited compared to heavy gases. But various standards such as KS, IEC, API, NFPA do not exclude light gases when classifying EHA and present examples of EHA for light gas facilities. This study calculates EHA using the hypothetical volume in the IEC code where the hole sizes required for the calculation were selected according to various nominal pipe sizes in such a way to conform to the EHA data in the API code and HSL. Then, 25 leakage scenarios were suggested for 5 different pipe sizes and 5 operating pressures that cover typical operating conditions of light gas facilities. The EHA for the minimum leakage scenario(25 mm pipe, 0.01MPa pressure) was found to correspond to a hypothetical volume larger than 0.1 m 3 (medium-level ventilation). This confirms the validity of classifying EHA for facilities using lighter-than-air gases. Finally, a computer program called HACPL was developed for easy use by light gas facilities that classifies EHA according to operating pressures and pipe sizes.