BLOWDOWN Workshop

Objective:
This workshop will serve as an introduction to BLOWDOWN, where you will use the single-vessel
template to design an orifice pool fire depressurization scenario and simulate a cold case
depressurization scenario.

Design an orifice for pool fire depressurization scenario

 Open HYSYS File BlowdownStarter
 To add a BLOWDOWN unit, from the Home ribbon tab, under the Safety group, click the
BLOWDOWN and Depressuring button. On the depressuring form, click Add-
BLOWDOWN Utility. The BLOWDOWN Analysis form appears.

 On the BLOWDOWN Analysis form, change the name to Fire Case. Then, from the
Template drop-down list, select the SingleVessel.blo – Single Vessel BLOWDOWN
Template.

This template is pre-configured template with geometry and connections on the

BLOWDOWN flowsheet for a single vessel piping.
 Click the Start Analysis button.
 On the Design tab of the BLOWDOWN Analysis form, you can set up the layout of the
unit operations in the simulation to fit the process layout.
 For the Inlet Line, select the Without pocket option. This implies that all liquid in the inlet
line segments will drain towards the main vessel.
 For the Blowdown Line, select the Attached to vessel option, implying that the blowdown
line is attached directly at the top of vessel.
 For the Vapor Outlet Line, select Leaves vessel vertically, indicating that the initial
orientation of the vapor outlet line is vertical.
 In this case, you are modeling a single vessel without piping, so set all of the line segments
to 0.

 In the Ambient Air Properties section, specify the Air Temperature (Temperature of
ambient conditions) as 21C and Air Speed (Speed of air) as 2.438m/s under System tab.
 Under the Define Fire Zone section, check the box next to Main Vessel.
 Do not specify Equipment Conditions Upstream of Orifice. These will be updated from a
HYSYS stream that will be linked in the Initial Inventory section.
 Expand Initial Inventory-Main Vessel, on the left-hand side of System tab. Select the
Manual radio button, then click the Copy from Stream button.
 Select the Feed_Mix_Fire_RP stream on the Select Process Stream dialog box and then
click OK. HYSYS copies the composition of the selected stream.

 Click the Copy to Initial Conditions button. This button overwrites the Initial
Temperature and Initial Pressure values in the Equipment Conditions Upstream of
Orifice table in the Template Parameters section.
 Select Fire Zone Vessels in the left-hand pane to specify vessel information on the
Geometry, Heat Transfer and Initial Conditions tabs.
 On the Geometry tab provide the following geometry specifications.

 Move to the Simple Fire tab. Make sure Apply to Liquid is selected as the Heat Flux
Method.
 On the Initial Conditions tab, specify the Initial Liq. Volume % as 50% which is the
percentage of total volume that is filled by the liquid at the beginning of the blowdown
event.
 For the Restriction Orifice geometry information, provide an orifice Diameter of 12.70 mm and
Discharge Coefficient of 1.

 Select Run Controls tab of the BLOWDOWN Analysis form.

 In the Halt Conditions group, type a halt time of 900 Seconds and halt pressure of 14.70 psia.
The simulation will stop when the first of the two halt conditions is encountered.

 To run the BLOWDOWN simulation, click the Run BLOWDOWN on BLOWDOWN Analysis form.
 On the Results Summary tab of the BLOWDOWN Analysis form, you can review overall system
plots and key results or warnings from the simulation.
 Select the Major Findings page to view major findings from your BLOWDOWN simulation.
 Select the Plots page of the BLOWDOWN Analysis form to view in a graphical format.

What is the Vessel Pressure at the final Halt Time?

What is the Orifice Mass Flowrate at the final Halt Time?

 Save your case as FireCase.hsc

Next, the restriction orifice can be designed in BLOWDOWN using the Adjust unit
operation on the Main Flowsheet.
 Go to the halt conditions and set the final pressure as 0. This ensures that the simulation
always ends at the Halt Time rather than at the Halt Pressure conditions.
 Select the Run BLOWDOWN on input changes check box at the bottom of the
BLOWDOWN form.

 Add an Adjust block to the flowsheet from object palette.

 On the Connections tab-Connections page, for the Adjusted Variable, specify the
Orifice Diameter.
 For the Target Variable group, specify the Final Pressure.

 For the Target Value group, select the User Specified option and specify 50% of the
Design Pressure which is 1825.015 kPa.
 On the Parameters tab-Parameters page, in the Tolerance field, specify a tolerance of
around 1-10% of your desired final pressure, so specify 4psi as the tolerance and 0.1 in
as the Step Size.
 Start the Adjust block convergence.
What is the size of the Orifice?
 Save your case as FireCaseOrificeDesign.hsc