Biomedical subjects

Joaquim Casal

Publications and source records attributed to Joaquim Casal.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Using liquid superheating energy for a quick estimation of overpressure in BLEVEs and similar explosions.

A method is proposed for the quick estimation of the peak overpressure caused by a Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion (BLEVE) or a similar explosion. The method is based on the use of the "superheating energy" (SE), which is the difference between the specific enthalpy of the liquid at the temperature just before the explosion and the specific enthalpy of the liquid at its saturation temperature, at atmospheric pressure. The analysis performed with a set of reference substances showed that in a BLEVE or in similar explosions, the energy converted into overpressure will range between 3.5 and 14% of SE. The comparison of the values thus obtained with experimental data from the literature shows a fairly good agreement.

Energy Transfer↗

PubMed2006

Experimental study of thin-layer boilover in large-scale pool fires.

By performing a series of pool fire experiments, the authors attempt to apply knowledge of thin-layer boilover to the large scale (pool diameter from 1.5 to 6 m). Two commercial hydrocarbons were used: gasoline and diesel. As expected, only in the case of diesel did the phenomenon of thin-layer boilover occur. Data were used to analyze various features of thin-layer boilover in fires, particularly its intensity and onset time. A comparison with results published in the literature shows the importance of this study.

Fires↗

PubMed2005

Consequences of major accidents: assessing the number of injured people.

Quantitative risk assessment studies of accident scenarios usually involve estimating the number of fatalities that can be expected. The number of people injured, however, is seldom evaluated because it implies significant additional effort and often the information required to perform this evaluation is not available. However, the number of injured people can be very important for emergency planning, especially in relatively large accidents. In this paper, a set of 975 accidents were selected for analysis, with the aim of searching for a relationship between the number of people killed and the number of people injured. As the data were scattered, principal component analysis and clustering analysis were applied to identify the data subsets that could undergo a selective, specific statistical treatment. Further treatment of these subsets led to mathematical expressions that are used to estimate the probable number of injured people as a function of the number of fatalities for all accidents, as well as for gas cloud, fire and explosion events, respectively.

Accidents↗