The Set Covering Problem Combined to Computational Fluid Dynamics Under the Guidelines from BP GP 30-85 for Gas Detection Systems

An efficient approach to optimise the number and location of gas de­tectors plays a role of paramount importance when gas leak identification at early stage is required. The novel approach relies on the set covering problem (SCP). The optimisation problem is combined with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and the discrete optimisation problem is solved us­ing a classical branch and bound algorithm. Every computational cell is regarded as a node of the graph where the links are the common boards shared by the neighbouring cells. The graph is read into the code via its adjacency matrix. The characteristic length that determines the size of the computational cell follows the guidelines from BP GP 30-85. The optimal location of gas detectors is then assessed using computational fluid dynamics in order to verify if the coverage area modeled based on BP guideline is within the the acceptable time for detection and tolerable cloud size. The geometrical model is imported and combined with the results from the optimisation pro­cedure which can be visualised in a 3D post processing stage.