Department of Chemical Engineering

CHE 617- Assignment 2 Fall 2015

Due date: November 6, 2015 at 4 pm (departmental drop box)
1) The inerted vapors above a flammable liquid could be falsely believed to be not
flammable when they mix with air. This is frequently not the case. If the inerted vapors
escape from the vessel and mix with air or if the vessel is purged with air after emptying,
the resulting mixture might be flammable.
A storage vessel contains liquid benzene at 100 oF. The vessel vapor space is inerted with
pure nitrogen to a total pressure of 0.5 inch of water gauge. Assume that the vapor space
is saturated with benzene vapor.
a) Determine the volume percent concentration of benzene in the vapor.
b) What concentration of benzene in the vessel do we need to bring it down to so
that it is safe to take the vessel out of service for maintenance work?
c) What is the safe oxygen concentration to bring the vessel back into service after
maintenance work has been done?
2) A contractor considers installing a 1000-gal tank of liquid propane (C 3H8) to supply
gas for a burner. There is a concern that tank may rupture and the possibility of the
occurrence of a vapour cloud explosion of all the propane. How far away (in ft) must the
tank be from the surrounding buildings (houses) to ensure that the houses will receive
only minor damage from an explosion (if it occurs)? The specific gravity of liquid
propane is 0.50, and the energy of explosion for propane is 503.9kcal/g-mol.
3) A tank containing liquid butane (C4H10) is located 500 ft from an electrical substation.
One of the scenarios under consideration is the breaking of a 1-in schedule 40 pipe
(internal diameter = 1.049 in) with discharge of the liquid butane. This leak could cause
flammable vapor concentrations at the substation. Assume that all the liquid flashes to
vapour. Estimate the discharge rate (in lb/s) of butane from the 1-in broken pipe.
Given data:
The ambient air is at 80 oF and 1 atm. Under those conditions, the vapour pressure
of butane is 40 psia. The specific gravity of liquid butane is 0.571. The orifice
coefficient can be considered as 0.67