MMI Engineering, 2011 Page 1 of 3

MMI ENGINEERING
CAPABILITY STATEMENT
Optimization of Passive Fire Protection
Applied To Oil & Gas Facility Structures

The Benefits of Optimizing PFP

The optimisation of PFP will reduce the amount of PFP
applied to structures and plant installed on oil and gas
facilities. This reduction of the amount of material has the
benefits of:
Reducing the costs of protecting the structure
Reducing the weight of material that is applied.
Ensuring that the correct parts of the structure are
adequately protected.
Speeding up, and reducing the complexity of, the
fabrication procedure.
Stages in the Optimization Process

The optimisation process involves three steps that should be
addressed sequentially:
Fire Risk Analysis
To determine the fire threats to the facility





PFP material type specification
To determine the appropriate type of material for the fire
threats




Optimisation
To determination the optimum extent and amount of
material to be applied to meet the fire threats.
Use of all three stages will produce a PFP application that is
fit for purpose and provides the required fire protection for
the correct areas of the structure.
Stage 1 - Fire Risk Analysis

The Fire Risk Analysis (FRA) identifies the fire threats posed
by the operational activities o the installation. This assists in
identifying which elements require protection and determine
the fire loads that the elements will experience over time
during a fire. The identification involves:
The identification of the type, size, and location of
hydrocarbon inventories.
The likelihood of a release and ignition of the
hydrocarbon.
The type of fire (jet or pool, confined or unconfined)
produced.
The identification of the areas of the structure and
plant that could be impinged upon by the various fire
threats.
A criticality ranking of the required performance of the
affected areas to determine the need, and required
survival time, of the item.
The determination of the heat flux contours for each
fire threat and the time variation of the contours.
The production of time-varying heat flux loadings on
the critical elements, both fully engulfed or in close
proximity to the fire.

The criticality of a protected element may be defined on the
basis of preventing the collapse of:
Items which could compromise escape routes,
Structures supporting large vessels, and plant items,
and piperacks
Structures supporting control rooms, muster points,
and lifeboat stations
Failure of blast and fire walls segregating process
areas containing large hydrocarbon inventories
Firewalls protecting control rooms, riser manifolds,
escape routes, etc.
Decisions on element criticality should take into account the
facility safety case and the business requirements of
installations Operator.
The study may also include specifying the material to limit
the internal temperatures of enclosures.

The selection of appropriate acceptance criteria may also be
defined at this stage, depending on the item to be protected.
Criteria may be selected on the basis of an H or J rating (i.e.
H120/J 120 giving two hours of protection in a pool/jet fire).
The rating defines limiting temperature criteria (i.e. for
panels, a limitation of the temperature to 140 Celsius on the
back face for a fixed time period as per SOLAS).
Stage 2 - PFP System Type Specification
It is important that the material used to protect an item is
appropriate for that item, and the fire threat it may
experience. To ensure correct performance a system should
be selected by giving consideration to:


MMI Engineering, 2011 Page 2 of 3

MMI ENGINEERING
CAPABILITY STATEMENT
The functionality of the protected item.
The level of heat flux loading.
Mass momentum effects of jet fires and the fixity of
PFP systems.
Geometry of the protected item.
Operation loadings and their effect on fixity and long-
term durability.
Operational environment and its deleterious effect on
long-term durability.

A PFP strategy for an entire installation may involve a
number of different systems, selected as appropriate for
different situations such as:
Sprayed intumescent material for steelwork,
Reinforced intumescent for major vessels, Stainless
steel box systems for riser ESD valves,
Half shell bolted systems for riser pipework,
Fire blanket systems for blowdown valves, etc.

It is common that a strategy will involve a combination of
these but the principle means of protection utilizes sprayed
intumescents, installed in a reinforced or un-reinforced
manner.
Stage 3 - Optimizing the Extent and Amount of
PFP to be Applied

It is typical that major savings in material can be made in
optimizing the extent to which sprayed coatings are applied
to structural steelwork and vessels. To achieve this the FRA
generates fire loads and survival durations at critical
locations around the structure as a result of the various fire
threats.

For discrete items of equipment such as valves and risers, a
system can be selected using manufacturers information that
has the required properties to provide the necessary fire
protection.

The most efficient means of optimizing the sprayed coatings
is to undertake non-linear time-dependent finite element
analysis of models of the structure with the critical fire loads
and all operational loads applied. A code such as ABAQUS
or USFOS is ideal for such a study. If significant portions of
the structure involve the use of stiffened plate then ABAQUS
is the preferred tool.
Analytical Modeling Approach

The analytical approach takes spatial and temporally varying
thermal flux data, supplied from the Fire Risk Analysis and
applies these as thermal loads to each of the structural
models. The Fire Risk Analysis may produce a number of
different thermal load cases for different fires or wind
directions.



To analyze each of these would be prohibitively time-
consuming. Therefore, the results of the Fire Risk Analysis
should be used to define a bounding thermal load case, to
which the structures PFP placement will be adequately
designed. This withstand approach may be slightly over-
conservative, but it is the only realistic way of analyzing a
number of different fire scenarios within reasonable time and
cost boundaries.

Structures can be modeled using appropriate shell elements,
with five through thickness integration points. This is true of
structures that comprise all beams, or which are constructed
of plated and stiffened construction. Appropriate material
properties are applied, including the variation with
temperature of Youngs Modulus, the post-elastic stress-
strain curves and Poissons ratio.



Structural loads are added as distributions of point masses
as appropriate.

MMI ENGINEERING
CAPABILITY STATEMENT
The presence or absence of PFP is accounted for by
applying heat transfer coefficients to different parts of the
structure as appropriate. The heat transfer coefficients for
the PFP coated elements can be calculated based on
information supplied by the PFP manufacturers. Time
varying heat transfer coefficients can be implemented by the
use of an ABAQUS User Subroutine.


MMI Engineering, 2011 Page 3 of 3


Once the model for each structural area has been
constructed, the spatially and time-varying thermal loads are
applied using an ABAQUS User Defined subroutine.
Analytical Procedure

The most efficient means of beginning the process is to
assume that a zone subjected to fire has 100% PFP
application of a constant thickness. Reductions from this
level are then determined from the results of an initial
analysis that will give an indication as to the materials
temperature and any plasticity caused by thermal weakening
of the structure. The absence of material reaching
temperatures of higher than 300 Celsius (typical temperature
at which structural steels show a degradation in strength) or
any thermally induced plasticity will indicate that the structure
is potentially over-protected and that scope exists for
optimizing the placement of PFP. Through an iterative
process of, on average three analyses, the 100% PFP
application can be significantly reduced.

Results of the Analysis

This process typically results in a combination of:
Coatback of PFP such that only critical joints and
areas of structural elements are protected (for
example, key stiffeners, stiffened deck plate
supporting vessels, etc).
Removal of PFP from non-critical members.
Reduction of PFP thickness.

The net effect of these is improved targeting of PFP leading
to improved fire resistance with a reduction in PFP
quantities, leading to a commensurate reduction in PFP
costs and PFP weight.
This information is presented in the form of annotated
structural drawings that show the types, locations, and
thickness of the material to be applied.
This approach has been successfully applied to the
optimization of sprayed coatings applied to module support
frames, integrated decks, and 100% PFP application can be
significantly reduced.


Original PFP scheme


Optimized PFP Scheme


Contact:

Simon Thurlbeck
Tel: +44 (0)1925 230655
Email: sthurlbeck@mmiengineering.com
Website: www.mmiengineering.com