The effect of the environment conditions on the prediction of flammable cloud dispersion

In order to quantify the damage caused by undesired events involving leakages of flammable materials, specific models are used to analyze the spills or jets of gas and liquid, gas dispersion, explosions and fires. The main step of this analysis is to estimate the concentration, in space and time, of the vapor cloud of hazardous substances released into the atmosphere; the purpose is to determine the area where a fire or explosion might occur and the quantity of flammable material in that area. Recently with the computational advances, CFD tools are used to short and medium range gas dispersion scenarios, especially in scenarios where there is a complex geometry. However, the accuracy of the simulating strongly depends on the boundary conditions. Therefore, this study investigates the sensitivity degree of the prediction of cloud dispersion to changes in values of wind speed, ambient temperature, atmospheric pressure and ground roughness. This paper con-tributes to an appropriate assessment of the effects of these environment conditions to perform an accurate dispersion simulation using CFD tools and therefore contributes to a more effective analysis of the consequences