Quantitative Method of the Structural Damage Identification of Gas Explosion Based on Case Study: The Shanxi “11.23” Explosion Investigation

In order to present a retrospective analysis of exposition accidents using input data from investigation processes, data from a specific accident was examined, in which we analyzed possible involved gas species (liquefied petroleum gas; nature gas) and computed their concentrations and distributions based on the interactions between the structures and the effects of the explosion. In this study, 5 scenarios were created to analyze the impact effect. Moreover, a coupling algorithm was put into practice, with a practical outflow boundary and joint strength are applied.Finally, the damage effects of each scenario were simulated. Our experimental results showed significant differences in the 5 scenarios concerning the damage effects on the building structures. The results from scenario 3 agree with the accident characteristics, demonstrating the effectiveness of our proposed modeling method. Our proposed method reflects gas properties, species and the concentration and distribution, and the simulated results validates the root cause, process, and consequences of accidental explosions. Furthermore, this method describes the evolution process of explosions in different building structures. Significantly, our model demonstrates the quantatative explosion effect of factors like gas species, gas volumes, and distributions of gases on explosion results. In this study, a feasible, effective, and quantitative method for structure safety is defined, which is helpful to accelerate the development of safer site regulations.