Incident Analysis of a Fuel Loading Line

This paper discusses a post mortem incident analysis of a fuel loading line from a tank farm to a loading platform. The DN 250 mm GRE pipeline failed during start-up of the system, which was caused by an uncontrolled filling of a partially drained pipe section. Numerical simulations show that an integrated analysis (e.g. start-up after an incorrect shutdown) is required to determine the proper operating procedures. If this integration is not taken into account during the design of a pipeline system then, even in case of geometrically simple loading lines, incidents can result from a lack of awareness of the importance of operating procedures and loading sequences.