Modeling of the effects of CO2 leaks from pipelines and process facilities
Budsjett
Climit-finansiering
Prosjektnummer
182591
Partnere
Prosjektperiode
01.04.2007 – 01.01.2010
When processing and transporting significant quantities of CO2 there is a potential for leaks of CO2 to plant or surroundings. CO2 is denser than air and will replace air near the ground. Significant leaks may represent a significant hazard to people down wind, and even moderate sized leaks may fill pits and lowerlying areas with CO2 and be dangerous to people.
FLACS is a world-leading CFD-tool for gas explosion modeling, including hydrocarbon gas dispersion in congested process areas. In recent years a significant effort is invested in hydrogen safety, and FLACS is now gradually becoming a preferred tool also for hydrogen. FLACS has a potential to become a leading CFD-tool for dispersion of flammable and hazardous materials, including dense gas dispersion of CO2.In the proposed project some development tasks are planned that will improve the capabilities of FLACS in the area of dense gas dispersion.
• Good source terms describing leaking liquid CO2, including the pool generation and spread, crystallization/evaporation and sublimation. This model will be based on the framework of a recently developed liquid pool spread model for LNG, and BP will provide recent experimental liquid CO2 release results for validation/calibration of source models.
• Reduce momentum loss for dense gas dispersion on a sloping terrain (with a Cartesian grid). The slope of terrain and large objects not aligned to grid will be identified, and modifications to numerical schemes developed, for a smoother gas transport.
• Recent test data (release of liquid CO2, and measurement of downwind concentrations) made available by BP will be simulated, and used for validation of the new models.
• In the last phase of the project, some consolidation of models will be done, and demonstration simulations will be carried out. The project may be important to strengthen FLACS-DISPERSION, and GexCon will likely hire a PhD candidate on dispersion (however not specific for this project only).