The Jet Fire scenario is referred to in the NPD Regulations. It is stated that passive protection or other measures are required in some areas to give protection against the fires likely to occur, such as jet fires. Hence the operating oil companies demand documentation from the passive fire protection manufacturers that their material will give adequate fire protection.

The test procedure used on both sides of the North Sea to give such documentation has been developed over several years, including extensive experimental series in various scales. At SINTEF NBL we have compared our results from our 0.3 kg/s propane test with the tests performed at Spadeadam by Shell Research with 20 kg/s of natural gas. We have also exchanged heat flux meters and performed inter-calibrations.

In all three countries the jet fire research measured maximum heat fluxes (350-400 kW/m²) and temperatures high above what is built-in in the common HC-fire test. We are of the opinion that this test is giving a suitable documentation of the appropriate behaviour of the passive material for steel construction fire protection. SINTEF NBL and Shell Research have concluded that our 0.3 kg/s propane test fire sufficiently represents the full scale jet fire scenarios expected to occur in some areas on oil production platforms and it is sufficiently repeatable.

Available reports from SINTEF NBL

Report number STF25 A93021:
Paper at the 7th International Symposium on Loss Prevention and Safety Promotion in the Process Industries by L.C.Shirvill, Shell Research and R. Wighus, SINTEF NBL.

Report number STF25 A92026:
"Impinging Jet Fire Experiments- Propane 14 MW Laboratory Tests"
 

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