Abstract: The overpressure shock wave induced by vapor cloud explosion can cause permanent damage to the equipment and buildings of the oil and gas stations and also pose a risk of injury to the operators. In order to accurately describe the vapor cloud explosion accident scenario, the calculation results of TNT equivalent method, TNO multi-energy method and CFD method were compared under the same scenario conditions. And the applicability and differences of the results from different methods were evaluated. The results show that the TNT equivalent method overestimates the explosive intensity in the near field because of the characteristics of condensed matter explosive. The results of TNO multi-energy method vary greatly due to the selection of blast source intensity. When the concern is near-field explosion risk, it is recommended to use CFD method to calculate explosion parameters. When the concern is far-field explosion risk, it is recommended to use TNT equivalent method or TNO multi-energy method to calculate explosion parameters in simple cases. The research results can provide a theoretical basis for the establishment of explosion-proof measures for oil and gas stations.

Key words: vapor cloud explosion, TNT equivalent method, TNO multi-energy method, CFD method, overpressure value