(158b) Tsunami-Induced Oil Spill Fire Simulation in the Vicinity of Petroleum Industries in Japan

This paper presents the state of the art of tsunami-induced oil spill fire damage prediction in the vicinity of petroleum industries in Japan in future plate-boundary earthquakes. The tsunami following the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake caused large-scale oil spill fires spreading over Kesennuma Bay, Japan. A total of 7,530 kL of marine diesel oil were spilled from 13 fuel tanks destroyed by the tsunami, and contributed to the fires by igniting on the sea. According to previous experiments, burning floating debris, such as wooden building components, were likely to ignite the oil floating on the sea by acting as a candle wick, which at ordinary temperatures is not flammable. The oil spill fires on the sea caused secondary fires, such as building fires, ship fires, and wildland fires, resulting in approximately 247 ha of burned-out area. In particular, some tsunami vertical evacuation buildings were damaged by the oil spill fires, and people who had escaped to the buildings from the tsunami were exposed to the fires. These facts impressed people with the risk from the tsunami-induced oil spill fires in tsunami vertical evacuation in the vicinity of petroleum industries. Nevertheless, safety measures against the tsunami-induced oil spill fires have not been sufficiently considered in Japan because of the lack of the methods for predicting the damage from the tsunami-induced oil spill fires. Therefore, we have been developing a numerical simulation model for tsunami-induced oil spill fires that is a coupled simulation of tsunami, oil spill, and fire spread. In order to validate the proposed model, we numerically reconstructed the tsunami-induced oil spill fires at Kesennuma Bay in the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake. As a result of comparison of the calculated results with the observed records, we concluded that the proposed model can reasonably predict the dynamic states of the tsunami-induced oil spill fires. Moreover, we applied the model to the petroleum industries at Osaka Bay, Japan in future plate-boundary earthquakes, and numerically estimated the thermal impact of the simulated tsunami-induced oil spill fires on tsunami vertical evacuation buildings in order to identify the buildings at high risk that are required for fire safety measures.