cmr gexcon

Safety First for people and industrial facilities all over the world. For several decades, this has been the main focus of GexCon’s products, risk assessment services and research.

Since the beginning of the oil industry in Norway in the 1970s, our experts have built and shared knowledge on how to prevent accidents from gas explosions. Our powerful FLACS software has now become the world #1 explosion simulator. GexCon aims to be a globally leading company within explosion and fire safety.

Within the offshore oil and gas industry the use of CFD tools has become industry-standard for risk assessments and safety studies. FLACS, developed by GexCon, is the globally most accepted and used consequence model for such studies. GexCon aims to maintain this position and further increase the use of FLACS for onshore studies, dispersion and explosion, as well as for CFD fire studies.

GexCon’s head office is located in Bergen in Norway, and there are subsidiaries in the USA, the UK, Australia and Italy. GexCon also cooperates with a network of sales representatives to distribute the FLACS software and services globally.

1970s

Flixborough explosion onshore in the UK.

Dust explosion laboratory established at CMI (GexCon).

Ekofisk Bravo blowout.

1960s

Phillips Petroleum discovers oil in

Norway.

GAS DISPERSION MODELLED IN FLACS, SHOWN IN VRSAFETY

SAFETY

HiStory The history of the explosion team at GexCon dates back to the 1970s, with the establishment of a dust-explosion laboratory in 1970. A number of onshore explosion accidents and the oil industry coming to Norway around that time led to the establishment of a first experimental test programme for large-scale gas explosions in 1978–1980. With the support of six major oil and gas companies, a large programme of explosion R&D started in 1980, including the development of the

first version of FLACS. During the 1980s and 1990s the main focus in FLACS’ development was the needs of the oil and gas industries. GexCon (CMI/CMR) performed thousands of experiments to build up an understanding of the physics of gas explosions. From the release of the first version of FLACS in 1986 (FLACS-86), GexCon’s explosion consulting services gradually developed. In 1996 FLACS was made commercially available to competing consulting companies.

1980s

FLACS-86 is released.

GexCon offers FLACS consulting services.

Piper Alpha accident (UK) – 167 workers killed.

Third Gas Safety Programme starts (supported by 13 oil

companies and authorities).

First Gas Explosion Programme starts (supported by six

oil companies).

1990s

Large-scale explosion tests performed at Spadeadam, UK.

FLACS software becomes commer-cially available.

GexCon AS established to sell FLACS and FLACS services.

ISO 13702 standard sets requirements for explosion tools used for

offshore platforms.

.

2000s

CMR Explosion R&D department is merged with GexCon.

Norsok Z-013 guidelines for CFD-based probabilistic studies.

Buncefield explosion (UK) and Texas City explosion (USA).

GexCon UK and GexCon US established.

2010–onwards

Macondo explosion and blowout (Gulf of Mexico).

ISO 19901:3 standard requires worst-case or probabilistic studies

offshore.

FLACS first CFD software accepted by US DOT for LNG studies

according to NFPA 59A.

GexCon Australia and GexCon Italy established.

EARLY CMI (GEXCON) EXPLOSION R&D WORK, 1980: R.K. ECKHOFF,K. FUHRE, J. E. VINNEM, J.H.S. LEE, O. KREST

GEXCON’S LARGE-SCALE EXPLOSION TEST FIELD

SAFETY

ProduCtS and ServiCeSGexCon’s main products are the FLACS CFD consequence software and consulting services using FLACS. GexCon also provides dust and gas explo-sion testing at our large-scale or small-scale test sites as well as qualitative explosion safety assessments. FLACS has for a long time been the globally leading CFD tool for gas explosion modelling. In October 2011, FLACS became the first CFD tool accepted by the US Department of Transportation to be used for LNG facility siting studies in the USA according to the NFPA 59A standard.

GexCon consultants have ambitions to be the preferred provider of CFD consulting services for a range of studies, including:

With the improved precision of prediction tools, the development focus shifted towards topics such as the modelling of gas dispersion and explosion of non-homogeneous gas clouds, and tests to validate more advanced CFD-based risk assessment methods. FLACS was developed to handle new application areas, e.g. onshore dispersion, hydrogen safety, release of liquefied gases with pool spread and evaporation (e.g. LNG) and dust explosions. Large-scale experiments performed elsewhere are often used to validate FLACS. More efficient calculations have been achieved through parallelisation and the development of incompressible solvers (dispersion) in FLACS. Ongoing modelling efforts include the development of a fire model and work to improve interfaces.

Overseas offices were established from 2008, and by 2012 GexCon had employees at 5 offices around the world. The FLACS CFD consequence software is in use at more than 100 organisations around the world.

• Quantitative explosion risk assessments

• Accident/incident investigations

• Various gas and dust explosion studies

• Layout optimisation with regards to explosion risk

• Predicting the effect of explosion mitigation

• Blast waves and control rooms

• Drag loads on piping

• Toxic gas dispersion

• Helideck studies

• LNG dispersion studies

• Gas detector optimisation

• ATEX/DSEAR equipment testing and certification

• Experimental contract research

• Dust explosion testing

AOKA MIZU FPSO, COURTESY OF BLUEWATER ENERGY SERVICES B.V

20 LITER VESSEL USED FOR DUST TESTING IN GEXCON

DUST LABORATORY

norway (Head quarter)visiting address

GexCon ASFantoftvegen 38NO-5072 Bergen

Norway

Postal addressGexCon AS

P.O. Box 6015NO-5892 Bergen

Norway

Phone+ 47 55 57 43 30

[email protected]

www.gexcon.com

GexCon is a company in the CMR group

GexCon offices:

australiaGexCon australia Pty Ltd

PerthPhone: +61 3 98639411

Mob: +61 432 76 1102 Email: [email protected]

italyGexCon italy Srl.

Via Finlandia 19/B20093 Cologno Monzese (MI) Italy

Phone: +39 393 578 5097 Email: [email protected]

uKGexCon uK Ltd

West Lancashire Investment CentreMaple View

White Moss ParkSkelmersdale

LancashireWN8 9TG

Phone: +44 (0)1695 726565 Email: [email protected]

www.gexcon.co.uk

uSGexCon uS inc

7735 Old Georgetown Rd, Suite 1010Bethesda, MD 20814

Phone: +1 (301) 915-9940 Email: [email protected]

www.gexconus.com

GexCon and FLaCS’ global presence:

Chinat-Solution

Shanghai and BeijingEmail: [email protected]

www.t-solutiongroup.com.cn

indonesia, Malaysia and SingaporePt advanced technology Solution

Jakarta, KLEmail: [email protected]

www.atsindo.com

indiatridiagonal Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

Email: [email protected]

Japanexplosion research institute, inc.

IbarakiEmail: [email protected]

www.bakuhatsu.jp

russiaLLC research institute

for Fire Safety (riFFSP)Krasnoyarsk


South Korea

uit incSeoul


taiwananCad

TaipeiEmail: [email protected]

cmr gexcon

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