OTC-25016-MS

3-D Mapping for Fire and Gas Detection

Chua Kien Kek, PETRONAS; Tan Ping Yang, PETRONAS

Copyright 2014, Offshore Technology Conference

This paper was prepared for presentation at the Offshore Technology Conference Asia held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 25–28 March 2014.

This paper was selected for presentation by an OTC program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper have not been
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Abstract
An increasingly competitive environment has put intense pressure on Oil & Gas operators to design and operate facilities in a
more cost efficient manner without compromising safety. Fire and gas detection systems play an important role as a safety
barrier in process safety management and the adequacy of detection coverage is crucial. PETRONAS has developed 3-D
visualization software to accurately quantify detector coverage for correct detector placement.
This software provides a quantitative means of evaluating flame and gas detector coverage which is not available via
conventional engineering methods. It also improves accuracy over conventional 2-D methods, evaluating coverage around
irregular-shaped equipment at different elevations. The company’s Fire and Gas Mapping software can be used to evaluate
detection of various hazards by different detection technologies such as combustible gas (point, open path and ultrasonic),
flame (UV, UV/IR, IR3 and CCTV) and toxic gas (point and open path).
With a greater emphasis on safety and economics in Oil & Gas facility design and operations, fire and gas mapping is an
invaluable technical solution and will become the benchmark in determining detector placement for the industry.

Introduction
Hydrocarbons and its associate derivatives are inherently volatile and flammable, which poses great risk in the oil and gas
industry. Historically, accidents happened in petroleum production and processing facilities were severe and impacts the
environmental, human lives and assets. For example, the incident at Gulf of Mexico on 2010, the Macondo well blew out had
taken 11 lives, pouring more than 4 million barrels of crude into the ocean and billions of dollar were lost.
Such incident has brought the industry to tighten safety procedure for its operation and making more people aware the
importance of safety system. Fire and gas detection system plays an important role in providing a safety barrier in process
safety management and the adequacy of detection coverage is especially crucial in order for the fire and gas detection system
to function as expected. As shown in figure 1, fire and gas system is plays the role of a mitigation system as an event occurs
to prevent escalation.

Figure 1: Process Safety Layer of typical facility

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However, despite of the importance of coverage of fire and gas detection in providing functional protection to fire hazard,
most engineers still relies on engineering judgment and experience in placing fire and gas detectors in constructing the
detection system. Such method is often judgmental and subject to each individual’s own reasoning. Figure 2 and Figure 3
shows some examples of what happened when such engineering judgment run awry.

Figure 2: Detector is blocked by pipes

Figure 3: Detector is placed too close to vessel

In figure 1, a triple IR flame detector is placed behind the pipes, which results in reduced sensitivity to IR signals from fire as
the pipes blocks the sensors partially. Operators may think that the flame detector is available to provide detection from fire,
however, with reduced sensitivity; the flame detector may only be triggered when the fire escalates. In Figure 2, a flame
detector is monitoring a production separator. One may assume that the coverage is adequate as flame detector is with close
proximity to the equipment. However, further analysis performed indicates that the flame detector is only able to partially
cover the vessel, leaving majority parts of vessel out of view.

These examples illustrated the importance of fire and gas detector mapping to be done correctly, as work experience or rule
of thumb may not suffice. The advent of computer tools to aid the engineers in performing mapping studies had remove the
presumption and “guts feeling’ in making decision to place detectors.

2-D Mapping versus 3D Mapping

For decades, 2D mapping tools has been available in the market, which imparts a mean for the engineers to mathematically
determine the percentage of coverage for the detectors. However, one of the drawbacks which are integral to its functionality
is the limitation of 2D mapping for volumetric space. Figure 4 exhibits the technique of 2D mapping only uses the plant
layout to generate a contour map that shows the coverage of detectors from top view perspective. Such contour map is unable
to correctly represent the volumetric dimensions and thus often resulting inaccuracy of coverage and over-engineering of a
facility.
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Figure 4: Contour map of typical 2-D Mapping Assessment

Therefore, the company had devised three dimensional mapping methodology and techniques that are capable to take into
account of spatial volume and developed an in-house tool for such purpose. Over the years of testing and deployment in the
company’s facilities, the system is proven to be more superior and efficient compared to the existing 2D mapping tools,
which will be discussed in the following section.

Mapping Methodology
To-date, mapping to create an optimized and competent fire and gas protection system still much relies on each facility
operators. Standards such as API 14 C, ISA TR 84.00.07 and IEC 61511 each has its own strength and weakness in
addressing the requirement of fire and gas protection system of oil and gas facilities, but they are mainly descriptive and do
not specifically detailed the techniques of fire and gas mapping. Hence, oil and gas companies had each formulated their own
mapping techniques based on these international standards in order to facilitate the installation of detectors. As one of the
major player in the industry, the company had developed the technical standards to cater to such need, which is the
PETRONAS Technical Standards (PTS) 14.33.01.

The PTS had provided answers to the impending doubts on procedural means of optimizing the placement of detectors. In
this regards, the group also developed the three dimensional mapping tool – FnGMAPTM , which incorporates the procedural
process of performing fire and gas mapping for detectors outlined in PTS into one complete package. From the PTS, mapping
study of fire and gas could be separated into four distinct steps, which is shown in Figure 5.

Data collection Analysis and

Coverage Simulation and
and Hazard report
Target Settings Assessment
Identification generation

Figure 5: Fire and Gas Mapping Procedures

The first step is to initiate a fire and gas mapping study, process safety related documents should be prepared and compiled.
The purpose is to identify areas whereby hazardous materials are present and calculating the possibility of fire with supported
data by other safety studies done prior to plant commissioning. Data collected and calculated from the first stage will aid in
establishing the coverage target required for each area and equipment. Coverage target is coverage requirement for the related
hazard ranking assigned to each process critical areas and equipment, depending on each area and equipment’s process
condition, examples of hazard ranking and fire grading as shown in Figure 6.
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Prior to performing assessment on detector’s coverage, coverage target for fire and gas mapping are determined and assigned
based on data produced from the prior study in stage one and two. For fire detection mapping, fire grading is assigned to each
equipment based on their respective hazard ranking, which are mainly categorized into high, medium and low. The respective
coverage target for each fire grading is shown in Table 1. Similar ranking classification is also applied to gas detection
mapping.

High Medium Low

Figure 6: Coverage target of equipment

Table 1: Coverage target of each hazard ranking

Hazard Ranking Fire Grading Coverage Target

High A 90%

Medium B 85%
Low C 60%

With the completion of the first and second step, all relevant data required to perform mapping simulation and assessment
should be in place. The accuracy of data calculated is crucial as it will affect the results obtained from the simulation. In order
to perform mapping assessment to get the optimum coverage of detectors, computer software tools will be needed to perform
quantitative analysis. For the third stage, 3-D mapping tool should be employed to run the analysis of detector’s coverage. In
order to illustrate the differences of 2-D mapping compare to 3-D mapping, Figure 8 shows an instantaneous 3-D mapping
result and 2-D mapping of the same equipment. The original equipment layout can be seen in Figure 7.

Figure 7: Equipment to be map for detector placement

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Figure 8: 3-D mapping result compare to 2-D mapping result

In figure 8, the example uses identical equipment and flame detector placement for both 3-D mapping and 2-D mapping.
Using 2-D mapping, the result returned by the engineering tool gives a coverage percentage of 89% for the pumps and 57%
for the vertical vessel, whereas using FnGMAPTM to perform the 3-D mapping, the actual volumetric coverage should be
71% for the pumps and 65% for the vertical vessel. The difference between two mapping technique can be as much as 18%
and -8% , which could mean that using 2-D mapping tool, the design of fire and gas system could be over-engineered or
under-engineered. This could lead to significant impact of the facilities CAPEX or undermining the safety of the facilities.

Application of 3-D Mapping

Currently, 3-D mapping is widely adopted among the company’s operating units on their respective facilities and the
company’s group consultation body provides the services of fire and gas mapping services. Table 2 is a case study performed
on an existing facility using both 3-D and 2-D mapping. By adhering to the standards and requirement, 3-D mapping is able
to reduce the required number of detectors by 64.5%, which is equates to millions of dollars saved through hardware and
maintenance.

Table 2: Case study on existing facility located at Kerteh, Malaysia.

Detection 2D Mapping 3D Mapping

Flame Detector 280 166

Open-Path Gas 170 17

Detector
Point-type Gas 467 142
Detector
Total 917 325

On the other hand, Table 3 shows an example of the motivation to perform mapping study instead of using individual
engineering judgment. The original engineering design was proposed prior to performing fire and gas mapping study,
whereby placement are made solely based on the lead engineers’ experience from previous projects. After fire and gas
mapping study was performed, the proposed layout and detector installation shows great reduction in detector numbers
needed to fulfill the required coverage targets.
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Table 3: Case study on green field project (Floating LNG)

Detection Original Proposed Reduction

Flame Detector 161 25

Open-Path Gas 132 5

Detector
Point-type Gas Detector 147 24

Ultrasonic Gas Leak 70 20

Detector
Hydrogen Sulfide Toxic 66 11
Gas Detector
Total 576 85

Conclusion
From this discussion, it is evident that mapping study is important to ensure the functionality of fire and gas system as one of
the process safety layers. The emphasis of safety on current oil and gas industry signifies the importance of fire and gas
mapping study. In addition, advancement of computational tool in assisting engineers to calculate and optimize detector
coverage had eliminated qualitative judgment based on work experience. On the other hand, the utilization of 3-D mapping
software had increased the accuracy of mapping study to ensure that it is an invaluable technical solution and will become the
benchmark in determining detector placement for the industry.

References
API RP 14 C, Analysis, Design, Installation, and Testing of Basic Surface Safety Systems for Offshore Production Platforms
ISA TR 84.00.07, Guidance on the Evaluation of Fire, Combustible Gas and Toxic Gas System Effectiveness
IEC 61511, Functional safety - Safety instrumented systems for the process industry sector
PTS 30.20.20.11 PETRONAS Technical Standard Fire, Gas and Smoke Detection System
PTS 14.33.01 PETRONAS Technical Standard Fire and Gas Mapping