Vapor Barrier Assessment Program for delaying and diluting heavier-than-air HF vapor clouds: A wind tunnel modeling evaluation. Volume 1, Detailed report.

摘要

A three-phase research program was conducted as one technical component of the Industry Cooperative HF Mitigation/Assessment Program (ICHMAP) to assess the effectiveness of vapor barriers in delaying and diluting accidental releases of heavier-than-air (HTA) hydrogen fluoride (HF) vapor clouds in industrial plant settings. Such barriers might have potential application as a technique to mitigate the consequences of accidental releases of HF and other HTA vapor clouds. Because one potential application of such barriers might be in an HF alkylation plant where there is also the potential for releases of flammable hydrocarbons, this research program also assessed what impact, if any, such barriers might have on the consequences of an unconfined vapor cloud explosion. This report presents the results from Phase 3 of the research program that consisted of a series of over 200 wind tunnel simulations using a surrogate gas for HF to quantify the impact of plant obstacles and mitigation barriers on downwind concentrations and cloud transport times. All simulations were of transient HTA releases of simulated HF. Barrier performance was judged based on concentrations measured downwind of the release averaged over 1 minute (full scale). 25 refs. (ERA citation 15:032137)