Optimising gas and flame detector layouts in hazardous manufacturing and production plants

Gas detectors are commonly installed in manufacturing and production facilities where hazardous substances are processed (such as oil and gas installations), to automatically alarm and trigger safety measures in response to leak events. Gexcon, the software provider, produces FLACS, a CFD modelling software used for safety studies. To date, the amount of computing power required for a CFD-based optimisation of gas detector layouts has been prohibitive in terms of both costs and time. Gexcon and Micropack joined forces to develop the next-generation methodology for gas detection system design.

The goal of the Fortissimo experiment has been to provide FLACS as Software as a Service (SaaS) offering, with the usage of HPC fully integrated in the FLACS GUIs, under the new product name “FLACS-Cloud”. The new service enables Gexcon’s customers to tap into powerful HPC-cloud resources seamlessly from the GUI, so that it appears no different to the user compared to accessing a local cluster. The key difference is that the users only pay for the time that they use, making it much more cost-effective. The access to HPC computing resources available through the FLACS-Cloud service renders it feasible to apply proper CFDbased optimisation to the placement of gas detection systems.