Development of Wellhead Safety Zone Criteria for Underground Gas Storage Facilities

Technical Report · Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1474560· OSTI ID:1474560

Sulfredge, Charles David ^[1]; Rose, Simon D. ^[1]

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1. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

Underground natural gas storage facilities are a vital part of the US national infrastructure. However, the concept of hazard zones from fires and explosions at these facilities is not nearly as well defined as it is for natural gas transmission pipelines. This report will take a well-established criterion for pipeline hazard zones (the pipeline impact radius or PIR) and and adapt it to underground gas storage facilities. The new safety area predicted for an underground gas storage facility will be called the wellhead safety zone or WSZ. Comparisons will be made between the resulting WSZ formula and the observed damage zone from known accidents at gas storage facilities.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1474560
• Report Number(s): ORNL/TM-2018/945
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English