(133b) Damage Level Matrix and Damage Curves for Buildings in Refineries and Petrochemical Facilities

Damage Level Matrix and Damage Curves for Buildings in Petrochemical Facilities

One important component of a
Facility Siting Study is the prediction of building response due to blast
loading. Commonly used building damage criteria for siting studies are the ones
published in ASCE's ?Design of Blast Resistant Buildings in Petrochemical
Facilities, First (1997) and Second (2010) Editions? and U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers Protective Design Center Technical Report (PDC-TR 06-08, 2008). The
2010 Edition of the ASCE book has similar response criteria as the PDC-TR, however no specific guidance is provided how to
calculate Building Damage Level using the Component Damage Levels provided in
the book. PDC-TR provides a matrix to relate component damage to building damage.
Unfortunately, this matrix can result in very conservative estimates of the
building damage level for steel buildings with weak sidings like light-gage
corrugated metal panels or transite panels which are common in the
petrochemical and chemical facilities. This first part of this paper discusses
methods to relate component damage levels to building damage levels for these
types of buildings and hence achieve reasonable results for specific building
types that are common in petrochemical and chemical facilities.

Building damage curves
(pressure-impulse) diagrams are commonly used in facility siting studies for refineries,
and petrochemical and chemical facilities. The second part of this paper
presents a set of building damage curves that were created based on analytical
methods and extensive experience of the author on blast response of typical
facility buildings. Analytical curves are based on the new damage matrix
mentioned in the first part of this paper. The paper also discusses
non-structural hazards and other considerations when evaluation plant buildings
under blast loads.