Previous Updates

Innovative Hybrid Approach Detailed in Journal Publication: 'Enhancing Flammable Gas Dispersion and Explosion Prediction' With Special Focus on Hydrogen

10-01-2024 - In an exciting update, Advanced Analysis Australia is pleased to share the release of a significant research paper in the Journal of Process Safety and Environmental Protection. Titled "Enhancing Flammable Gas Dispersion and Explosion Prediction: A Novel Hybrid Analytical-Numerical Approach with exploCFD," the paper highlights important progress in explosion consequence analysis.

The article explores a new approach that combines analytical and numerical methods, showcasing its potential to improve predictions of flammable gas dispersion and explosion scenarios particularly for hydrogen. This innovative method, featuring exploCFD, aims to make explosion consequence analysis more accurate and efficient in various industrial applications.

This publication reflects Advanced Analysis Australia's commitment to advancing safety and environmental protection in the process industry. Dedication to finding new and improved techniques is evident in this thorough exploration of an approach that has the potential to impact industry standards.

Development, Validation and Application in Complex Geometry of a Hybrid Method for Modelling High Explosive Detonations

04-12-2023 - Advanced Analysis Australia participated in the 26th MABS International Symposium on Military Aspects of Blast and Shock, which took place in Wollongong, NSW, from December 3rd to 8th, 2023.

Dr. Madhat Abdel-Jawad presented on the latest improvements in exploCFD, offering insights into the validation and application of this technology for modeling high explosives.

The presented results showcase the efficacy of the hybrid method in accurately modelling high explosive detonations within complex geometries, thereby offering valuable insights for practical engineering scenarios.

Mining Safety: Blast Analysis Optimization with exploCFD

01-11-2023 - Continuing an extensive history of conducting fire and explosion consequence analysis studies, as well as accident investigations in mining and metal processing operations for various sites and clients, Advanced Analysis has recently concluded a new study focusing on assessing the consequences of drill and blast operations on crucial structures.

In this most recent study, conducted at a nickel mine for a prominent mining technical service provider, Advanced Analysis engineers calculated the overpressure time history and impulse acting on a structure at the end of a ventilation shaft due to a charge detonated in a cavern at one end of the shaft.

Our engineers employed the widely recognized and extensively validated explosion consequence analysis software, exploCFD, to examine the effects of firing sequences. This involved comparing simultaneous detonations with sequential blasts, each with a 40 millisecond delay.

Our engineers concluded that a reduced amount of explosive effectively maintains overpressures below a pre-specified critical overpressure threshold. This demonstrates a safe and efficient approach, emphasizing the potential for this type of analysis to contribute to enhanced safety practices within the mining industry.

This study is part of an extensive series of efforts dedicated to improving safety and efficiency in mining operations across various sites and for diverse clients, reflecting a commitment to ongoing progress within the industry.

Advanced Analysis Celebrates the Arrival of Fire Modelling in exploCFD:

Ignite Your Safety Analysis!

09-07-2023 - Advanced Analysis has just announced the release of fire modelling capabilities in exploCFD, marking a significant milestone in our commitment to empowering safety analysis and risk assessment.

Fire modelling has long been recognized as a critical aspect of process safety analysis. With the latest update to exploCFD, analysts can now simulate and analyze fire behavior with exceptional accuracy and insight. By capturing radiation fields from jet and pool fires, exploCFD equips users with a comprehensive understanding of fire dynamics and their potential impact on industrial processes.

The inclusion of fire modelling further enhances exploCFD's position as the most comprehensive and user-friendly consequence analysis tool available. Analysts can now benefit from a single software solution that covers a wide range of hazards, including toxic and flammable dispersion, gas and dust explosions, fire and gas mapping, and now, sophisticated fire modelling.

With exploCFD's continuous updates, validations, and innovations, we remain committed to delivering cutting-edge capabilities that meet the evolving needs of the industry. Our mission is to empower analysts like you to unlock new insights and make informed decisions when it comes to process safety and risk management.

Advanced Analysis Completes a Fire and Gas Detector Optimisation Study

28-04-2023 Advanced Analysis has just completed another fire and gas detector optimisation study for a large onshore site in SE Asia using computational fluid dynamics.

Methodology for the location of fire and gas detectors varies greatly between providers with some opting for a prescriptive approach which prescribes a minimum detector density. A more detailed approach involves the use of computational fluid dynamics which correctly accounts for the evolution and eventual location composition and size of the resulting gas cloud for toxic and flammable releases which are the main parameters that determine the importance of the release consequences. A large gas cloud in an unpopulated and uncongested area will have far less severe consequences that a smaller cloud in a highly congested or populated area. Radiation contours, the main consequence of fires are also affected by the presence of obstacles and the shape and location of a jet fire which can often extend for tens of meters. Prescriptive approaches do not take account of these important criteria. Computational fluid dynamics not only accounts for the presence of obstacles, but the shape and size of pool fires and jet fires which greatly influence the consequences.

Our study was carried out using the revolutionary CFD software, exploCFD which greatly reduces the time and cost overhead of CFD studies.

Modelling Ammonia Releases

11-31-2022 Advanced Analysis has completed a detailed study of ammonia releases for a large international operator. Ammonia can be transported at very low temperatures and hence even if it flashes, the result is a heavy gas that behaves in many ways like a liquid. One major difference between the behaviour of heavy gas and a liquid, is that this heavy gas is still susceptible to wind. This leads to some counterintuitive effects. In the video above a (modified) scenario is shown where ammonia is blown up a hill and then sinks down to a valley which includes an industrial facility

exploCFD v8.5 is now available for trial free. Click on the Request a trial of exploCFD button above or the link below to give it a test drive.

Modelling Transformer Explosions using exploCFD

31-10-2021 Advanced Analysis has completed a detailed transformer explosion study using exploCFD for Rio Tinto in Australia. Ageing transformers can suffer faults which result in arcing. This in turn raises the temperature in the transformer tank and results the evaporation of part of the transformer oil raising the temperature and pressure in the transformer until the tank undergoes rupture. This initial explosion can result in a secondary oil mist explosion which can be a powerful explosion if it occurs in a confined space such as a a building basement. The sequence of events can easily be modelled with the latest version of exploCFD.

exploCFD v8 is now available for trial free. Click on the Request a trial of exploCFD button above or the link below to give it a test drive.

exploCFD wins the 2020 IChemE Global Process Safety Award

19-11-2020 Dr. Madhat Abdel-jawad MD of Advanced Analysis gave a presentation to the IChemE Process Safety 2020 Global Award panel last night about our innovative and increasingly popular explosion modelling software exploCFD. We are proud to announce that, exploCFD was selected as the 2020 winner. exploCFD is the first dedicated hybrid code for the modelling of explosions.

The progress of exploCFD has been fast even by todays tech. standards. This has been helped by some very active clients who have actively sought to improve the product with their suggestions and tests.

Hybrid consequence analysis methods are set to revolutionise the field of explosion modelling as they are designed to be faster and much easier to use than traditional CFD. Yet they deliver results within the uncertainty of the traditional CFD itself hence far more accurate than pure analytical methods.

Hybrid methods calculate the source of the explosion using an analytical model like Prugh’s method for a BLEVE, CSC for a gas explosion, TNT equivalence for an explosive charge or others. The results from that analytical calculation are fed as an input to an open source CFD solver. The solver is configured as a 2D calculation so that it runs faster, gives results that are far more detailed than pure analytical methods and slightly more conservative than the state of the art CFD, yet within the same margin of uncertainty. What’s not discussed often enough, is that this conservatism is needed given the large uncertainties in 3D CFD. Another innovation was also added to speed up the process. This is the capability to import a plot plan or an elevation drawing and have exploCFD convert the pdf directly into a grid, thereby saving the engineer the huge task of modelling the geometry and making these calculations accessible cheaply and quickly.

Advanced Analysis announces the release of exploCFD7

27-04-2020 Advanced Analysis announces the release of exploCFD7. The new release significantly expands the explosion case modelling capability of exploCFD to include new several new features. The software features the world's most detailed capability to model BLEVE (Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapour Explosion) cases which are a potentially catastrophic category of explosions of great concern to a large number of Major Hazard Facility Operators as well as some storage facilities.

A BLEVE occurs when pressurised liquid in a vessel is suddenly released into an environment at a P-T point above its boiling P-T curve. The release is due to the failure of the vessel brought on by very high temperature loads for example from a jet fire impinging on the vessel or a large pool fire which attacks the structural integrity of the vessel.

The new version of the software also has dust cloud explosion modelling which is also a high consequence category of events and explosive charge modelling capabilities which are capable of modelling high energy explosives such as Ammonium Nitrate and IEDs.

Advanced Analysis prominent at the AOG

12-03-2020 Advanced Analysis was prominent at the AOG 2020 in Perth. Though the attendance was slightly dampened by COVID19 fears, our booth welcomed hundreds of visitors including a delegation of graduating engineering students with Engineers Australia. Our flagship software DigiTwiin, our new PFD_2_RBD along with exploCFD received the most interest.

Dr. Madhat Abdel-jawad delivered a talk at the Engineers Australia Knowledge Forum 'The Myth of Episodic Deflagration'. The talk was an uncharacteristically strong attack on the UK HSE guideline relating to large explosions.

PFD2RBD Released

17-01-2020 - Advanced Analysis Australia announces the release of PFD2RBD: a revolution in RAM Analysis. The software is a much needed development for large projects with hundreds of thousands of assets. PFD2RBD automates the expensive, time consuming and tedious task of creating RBDs and cuts the cost of this process to a fraction of its manual cost. The larger the job the more the savings and of course once the library is setup, then the issue of errors and inaccuracies inherent in the manual process disappears. The software will read in a *.pdf of any drawing, PFD, P&ID or anything else. It searches for library items in each drawing and once it identifies an item it will add it to a list and allow you to enter any data associated with RAM analysis finally outputting an xml file which can be imported into Reliasoft’s Blocksim ready for analysis.

DigiTwiin : An Advanced digitisation tool released

19-08-2019 Starting in 2016 and continuing till 2019, Advanced Analysis undertook an ambitious development of an advanced drawing analysis software, in collaboration with LR, designed to digitize drawings and their data. The software built upon the platform of the company's PIDPartsCount. The result is the new DigiTwiin software which excels in automatically digitizing the information in not only P&IDs, but also plot plans, building drawings among a whole lot of other applications. The development has means that the core digitization capability has been enhanced significantly, and importantly, that the process is more user friendly, faster, and the costs are about a quarter of what they were. The software will provide Advanced Analysis with a powerful tool to remain ahead of the pack in the digitization space, and more new applications and interfaces are also now possible. The software is also now available for lease worldwide.

The Weird and Wonderful Chemical Kinetics of a Collapsing Cavitation Bubble

07-07-2019 Cavitation is the formation of water vapor bubbles due to a local drop in pressure to below the vapor pressure of water. It plays a major role in various systems. Recently brain damage associated with cavitation has been linked to PTSD. The details of the thermochemistry of a collapsing cavitation bubble are surprisingly counterintuitive. Our initial analysis shows that the temperature reaches such high levels that the water itself dissociates and the bubbles convert some of it into Hydrogen. The hydrogen at these conditions is too hot to burn. Later, if the bubble rebounds from collapse then the temperature drops to a low enough level to allow for the burning of hydrogen. In other words the collapsing bubble creates its own fuel then burns it. The process is similar to some of the processes seen in Hypersonic flight.

Dr. Madhat Abdel-jawad delivers a talk on exploCFD at NAFEMS Quebec

18-06-2019 Dr. Madhat Abdel-jawad, Director Advanced Analysis has presented a paper focussed on the validation of exploCFD at the NAFEMS conference on the 18th of June 2019 (in the 2D-CFD methods and meshing session). The explosion modelling software exploCFD uses a hybrid method to provide fast and extremely detailed analysis for explosions aimed to fill an urgent needed in the explosion modelling field for the oil and gas and chemical processing industries.

Advanced Analysis (UAE) starts large RCM and RAM Project with ADNOC Sour Gas

10-02-2019 Advanced Analysis (UAE) has commenced a large (1.2M) project with ADNOC sour gas and Reliasoft. The project is focused on the implementation of state-of-the-art reliability centered maintenance (RCM) and the implementation of RAM analysis for 3600 RBDs. The project is being managed directly by MD Advanced Analysis Dr. Madhat Abdeljawad who stated: "This is a key project in the area which will serve as a starting point for many others in the region as the entire oil and gas industry comes to grips with the importance of managing spare parts, downtime and repair costs to remain competitive in a tight market." RCM and RAM have a lot to offer operators in this area.

Advanced Analysis Australia completes apartment gas explosion study using exploCFD

28-01-2019 Gas explosions in apartment blocks can have devastating consequences due to escalating consequences of localized structural damage which can cause progressive collapse. The recent explosions in Magnitogorsk in Russia on Dec 31 2018. Our software exploCFD is uniquely suited to this type of analysis and provides detailed pressure distributions in minutes allowing for identification of safe regions and potential mitigation measures.

Advanced Analysis Delivers Highly rated Fire and explosion Course in Singapore

13-11-2018 Dr. Madhat Abdeljawad delivered a course on key fire and explosion phenomena along with a hands on session for modelling these phenomena to key clients in Singapore November . The course which includes new material from Dr. Abdel-jawad's research along with that of others was the highest ever rated course we have delivered receiving a near perfect rating.

Advanced Analysis completes the first probabilistic analysis in the Middle East Using EXSIM

16-06-2018 Advanced Analysis has carried out a probabilistic analysis ( the first in the Middle East ) using the explosion modelling software EXSIM. Often the worst case scenario is not tolerable in which case a probabilistic analysis approach is taken to combine consequence with frequency. Probabilistic Analyses involve the combining of the gas cloud size and location with release size and direction frequencies along with frequencies of wind speed and direction and an ignition probability model to obtain exceedance curves which link overpressure with frequency.

LRADA passes P3 tests

Advanced Analysis has been engaged since 2018 in the development of a new version of its flagship PIDpartsCount Software. The new product LRAdA has been undergoing prototype tests. P3 tests were recently conducted and the software passed with flying colors. The new product will be more accurate and far easier to use than PIDpartsCount, its only competition on the market.