Optimizing purge gas flows through a flare gas network

A flare gas processing system, comprising:

• a flare gas piping network, comprising:
• a main header fluidly coupled to a flare output;
• and
• a plurality of purge gas headers, each of the purge gas headers fluidly coupled to the main header and configured to receive a flow of a purge gas;
• a pressure sensor coupled to each purge gas header and configured to measure a fluid pressure of the flow of the purge gas at each purge gas header;
• a temperature sensor coupled to each purge gas header and configured to measure a fluid temperature of the flow of the purge gas at each purge gas header;
• a flow measurement assembly coupled to each purge gas header and configured to measure a rate of the flow of the purge gas at each purge gas header;
• and
• a control system communicably coupled to the pressure sensors, the temperature sensors, and the flow measurement assemblies and configured to perform operations, comprising:
• during the flows of the purge gas through the plurality of purge gas headers, obtaining the fluid pressures, the fluid temperatures, and the rates of the flows of the purge gas;
• and
• based on the obtained fluid pressures, fluid temperatures, and rates of the flows of the purge gas, determining an optimized flow velocity of the purge gas at each of the plurality of purge gas headers.