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DNV Software: Chapter 2: Performing A Worst-Case Analysis
DNV Software: Chapter 2: Performing A Worst-Case Analysis
DNV Software: Chapter 2: Performing A Worst-Case Analysis
Table of Contents
Introduction..................................................................................................................................... 1
Starting PHAST .............................................................................................................................. 2
Introduction to the Analysis............................................................................................................ 3
Creating the Anysite Study Folder.................................................................................................. 6
Setting the Materials Input Data .....................................................................................................
7
Setting the Weather Input Data..................................................................................................... 10
Setting the Map Data .................................................................................................................... 12
Defining the Ammonia Release .................................................................................................... 16
Defining the Hydrogen Cyanide Release...................................................................................... 21
Defining the Ethylene Release...................................................................................................... 22
Defining the Propylene Release.................................................................................................... 25
Viewing the List of Global Materials ........................................................................................... 26
Running the Calculations ..............................................................................................................
27
Viewing the Results ...................................................................................................................... 28
Summary of Worst Case Analysis ................................................................................................ 34
Introduction
This manual will lead you through the mail features of PHAST and PHAST Micro, by opening
a pre-defined case so that you can view both input data and results.
All of the examples in this chapter are based on PHAST Micro and are fully applicable to that
version. If you are using PHAST, you will see some features in your program that do not
appear in the illustrations and are not described in the text. Instruction on these features are
given in the PHAST Introductory Training Course. For details on the PHAST training courses
please contact your local Technical Support centre.
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Starting PHAST
When you install PHAST, the installation routine places a DNV folder under Programs in
your
Start menu, and you can start PHAST running by selecting the icon from the folder.
The installation routine also places a PHAST icon on the desktop so you can also start
PHAST
running by clicking on the desktop icon.
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Introduction to the Analysis
In this chapter, you will perform a simple worst-case analysis for the Anysite chemical
installation, to determine whether releases on the site have the potential to reach populated
areas beyond the site boundary.
Hazardous Materials
There are four hazardous materials present on the site in significant quantities:
Storage Conditions
The ethylene is stored under supercritical conditions, and the three other materials are stored
under saturation conditions. For the worst-case analysis, the materials will be modelled at the
maximum temperature experienced at the facility over the last five years, which is 90°F
(32°C). At this temperature, the storage pressures for the materials are as follows:
Release Scenarios
Different scenarios will be modelled for the toxic and the flammable materials, since
different types of release cause the worst long-range effects.
For the two toxic materials, the release scenario will be a release of the entire inventory over ten
minutes, and for the two flammable materials, the scenario will be an instantaneous release of
the entire inventory.
For toxic releases, the duration and concentration profile at the populated areas are more
important than the total mass in the cloud at any given time. A large continuous release will
give
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a greater duration of exposure than the equivalent instantaneous release. It may also take
longer to disperse to harmless concentrations, since air is mixed into the cloud from the sides
only, whereas air is mixed into an instantaneous release across all exposed surfaces.
For flammable releases, the greatest effect distances are usually produced by vapour cloud
explosions, and the size of these explosions depends on the flammable mass in the cloud at the
time of the explosion—which will be greater for an instantaneous release than for a
continuous release.
For the flammable materials, the calculations will obtain the explosion distances to an
overpressure of 1 psig, which is an overpressure that may cause injuries as a result of
minor structural damage (e.g. broken windows), but is unlikely to cause fatalities.
Weather Conditions
The calculations will use a windspeed of 5 ft/s (1.5 m/s) and an atmospheric stability of F,
which are common night-time conditions for the location. These conditions give low levels of
atmospheric turbulence, and the release may travel long distances before being diluted to a
harmless concentration.
The average humidity for the location is 70%, which is typical for a temperate, maritime
location.
The calculations require a value for surface roughness, which is a measure of the turbulence
induced in the air as it moves over the ground, and will be set conservatively to 0.06, a value for
sea or for flat, treeless land. This assumes that the wind is blowing towards the town, and that
the surface conditions upwind of the release determine the surface roughness.
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Location of the Anysite Facility
As shown in the map, Anysite is a large, ocean-side facility, located in an industrial area,
and nearly two miles from the nearest residential area.
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Creating the Anysite Study Folder
First, you must create a new Study Folder to store
all of your work on the Anysite facility. Close any
Study Folder that is currently open in PHAST, and
then select New from the File menu.
The program will create a new Study Folder called
Untitled with an empty Study called New Study.
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Setting the Materials Input Data
In the database of System Materials supplied with the program, ammonia and hydrogen cyanide
are defined as being both flammable and toxic. However, for the worst case analysis, you are
only interested in the toxic effects, and you can simplify the input data and the results if you
define them as toxic only for this analysis. You do this by creating local copies of the materials,
and editing the property data.
If you wish, you can omit this stage, since it is not essential. However, you may find it useful
as a quick and straightforward introduction to the properties system.
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The dialog offers three ways of inserting a material. The New option allows you to create a
completely new material, with no pre-defined properties data. The Existing and Copy options
both allow you to create a copy of a material that is already in the materials database at a higher
level (i.e. at the System or Global level): the Existing option keeps a link to the original
material, and if the values for the original material are changed, the program will automatically
update the values for any fields that are still using the original, default values; the Copy option
does not keep a link, and the local version will not be affected by any changes to the original
material.
Select the Existing option, locate and select AMMONIA in the list of materials, and then click on
OK to add the material to the Local Materials folder.
Click on OK to save the changed data, and then repeat the process with the local version of
HYDROGEN CYANIDE.
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The Changed Data for Ammonia
Page 9 of 36
Setting the Weather Input Data
Before defining any of the worst-case releases, you will define the other aspects of the input
data, which will be the same for all four releases: the Weather data, and the Map data.
For this Worst Case analysis, you are only going to model
one condition—1.5 m/s with F stability —which is one of
the default conditions.
The Default Weather Conditions for
a New Study Folder
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The Atmospheric Parameters Weather options
All of the fields in the Atmospheric Parameters tab section take their initial values from the
defaults system, which is shown by the green border around each field. When you change
the values to those required for this analysis, you will see that the border disappears—the
colour- coded borders mean that you can see at a glance which fields in a dialog are using the
default values directly, and which have been changed.
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Setting the Map Data
In the Map tab section of the Study Tree, select the Raster Image Set option under the
Anysite Plant, and then select the option to insert a new Raster Image using the icon in the
Toolbar, the Insert menu, or the right-click menu.
Once you have selected this raster image the Interactive Placement Mode option will become
enabled. This means that you can place your raster image onto your Map Window interactively.
The remaining Placement Mode options are not available because the Anysite.bmp file does not
contain GIS data. If you use a GIS raster image, with Header or Georeference data, PHAST
will place your map automatically for you. For further details on the GIS system in PHAST
please refer to the Online Help system.
When you press OK a Coordinate System Wizard will appear. Press Cancel to exit this wizard,
as it is for use with true GIS raster images. Again, for further details on the Co-ordinate
System in PHAST please refer to the Online Help system.
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The Coordinate System Wizard
A blank Map screen will now appear, for you to draw your raster image on to, using your mouse,
which will appear as a cross. Draw your map onto the blank Map screen, ignoring the actual
coordinates on the screen as you will set the origin and scale of the map in your next step.
NOTE: After pressing cancel you may have to wait a while before the blank map appears. Do
not click elsewhere on the screen during this time or the program will switch to a new
action and you will have to repeat the ‘Insert Raster Image’ step.
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Setting the Scale
You set the scale by drawing a line between two points whose distance apart is known, then
typing in the distance. In this case you will draw a line across the entire map, which is 5
km wide.
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To set the scale, select the map by clicking on it, then choose Map Scale and Origin... Set
Scale… from the Map menu or the right-
click menu. Then draw a line across the
entire width of the map. A dialog box will
appear asking for the length of your line,
so you should type in 5 km. When you
press OK to close the scale window you
will see that the horizontal and vertical
axes have been rescaled for the new value.
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To set the origin, select the map by clicking on it, then choose Map Scale and Origin... Set
Origin… from the Map menu or the right-click menu. The cursor will change to a cross-wire,
and you simply click on a point on the map to set that point as the origin. A dialog box will
appear for you. For this worst case analysis, you do not have to place the origin with great
precision, and any location near the middle of the site will be suitable.
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Defining the Ammonia Release
The first worst-case release is the 40,000 lb (18.1 tonne) ammonia
release.
Now enter the remaining data in the Material tab, using the data shown in the screen below.
When you select the material, the program automatically sets the Material to Track to
AMMONIA. You only have to choose a material to track if the Discharge Material is a mixture.
Note that you can use scientific notation when entering values, so you can enter the inventory
as “40e3”.
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Setting the Scenario Data
Move to the Scenario tab and set the following:
For most other types of Scenario, you have to give additional data that will enable the discharge
calculations to calculate the release rate. However, for the 10 Minute Release, the release rate
is calculated as (inventory/600 seconds) and not with any discharge calculations, so the Scenario
input data are very simple.
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The Elevation has a default value which is greater than zero, and you should leave it with this
default value. If a release is located at ground level (i.e. the Elevation is zero), the program
omits the detailed modelling of liquid droplets and their evaporation and possible rainout, and
simply assumes that all of the liquid in the release rains out immediately; this is a reasonable
assumption, since liquid droplets will have no opportunity to evaporate during the fall to the
ground if they are released directly onto the ground. However, most releases will be at some
elevation above ground level, and the program is supplied with a default Elevation that will
give a treatment of the liquid droplets that is more typical of a real release. This worst case
ammonia release is a vapour-only release, so the elevation is not as important as for a liquid or
two-phase release, but it is still more realistic to place the release at some distance above the
ground.
Leave the North and East coordinates with the default coordinates of zero, which will place
the release at the origin for the Map, which is in the middle of the Anysite facility.
Leave the three Distances blank. You can set a distance if you are interested in the effect levels
at a particular location, but for this analysis you are interested in the maximum dispersion
distance to a concentration of 200 ppm.
Check the box for Concentration of interest, set a value of 200 ppm, and set Uses
averaging time to Toxic. The significance of the Averaging time is described in detail below.
The wind does not blow steadily in a straight line; its direction varies with time, which causes a
cloud plume to meander from side to side. If you are standing downwind, at one moment you
are in the centre of cloud, experiencing the peak concentration, and the next moment the peak
has moved away to the side, and you are experiencing a much lower concentration—and in the
moment after that, the peak comes back over you and off to the other side, and so on.
The average concentration you receive over, say, 5 minutes will be much less than the peak
concentration; if you stood at the location for 30 minutes, the average would be lower still.
This factoring down of the peak concentration is carried out by the Averaging Time
Adjustment— the longer the time window, or Averaging Time, the lower the calculated
average concentration will be.
For the Concentration of Interest, you can choose between several averaging times, depending
on the type of release. For a toxic-only material, there are five choices: a User-Defined time
that you set in the User-defined field at the bottom left of the dialog group below; a Toxic time
that is set in the Toxic Parameters; and the ERPG, IDLH and STEL times that are set as part of
the definitions of these measures of toxicity, and cannot be changed. When you select a type of
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averaging time from the list, the value of the averaging time will be displayed in the field to the
right of the list; the default toxic averaging time is 600 seconds, which is also the duration of
this release.
All continuous releases you must set the direction. Instantaneous releases do not require
a direction as the inventory will be released in all directions.
For a vapour release, the Vessel tab section is only relevant if you want to perform time-
dependent discharge modelling, in which case you must give information about the dimensions
of the vessel and the liquid level. Such modelling is not applicable to the 10 Minute Release
scenario, which requires only the simplest discharge modelling.
The remaining tab sections allow you to change the default settings for explosion, fire and
discharge modelling. For a 10 Minute Release of a toxic-only material, these tab sections are
not relevant.
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Defining the Hydrogen Cyanide Release
The ammonia and the hydrogen cyanide releases have the same data for the Scenario and
Indoor/Outdoor tab sections, and differ only in the Material and Location data. To take
advantage of this, you will create the Hydrogen cyanide model as a copy of the
Ammonia model, and then edit the Material and Location data.
These changes complete the data for the release, and you can click on OK to save the edited
data.
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Defining the Ethylene Release
The input data for the flammable releases are significantly different from those for the toxic
releases, and there is nothing to be gained from copying one of the existing releases. Create the
ethylene release by inserting a new Vessel or Pipe Source Model, and give it the name Ethylene.
The ethylene is stored under supercritical conditions, and you must specify both the
temperature and the pressure.
Before you complete the entry of the temperature and pressure, you will see that the program
gives the Vessel Type and Phase as Unknown. At this point, the program has not checked the
state of the material at these conditions, and does not know that it is supercritical. Once you
enter the temperature and pressure then click or tab in another field the Phase will change to
show the material is stored as a Vapour and the Vessel Type will change to show Pressurised
Gas.
You will see that in this tab the release phase has been set to Vapour. This happens because the
program has checked the phase and determined that the material is supercritical (which the
program models as vapour).
Because you have set your release as a Catastrophic Vapour you can ignore both the Pipe and
Vessel tabs.
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The Location Input Data for the Ethylene Model
Unlike the toxic cases, you do not need to set a Concentration of interest or choose or set an
associated Averaging Time. For flammable releases, the program automatically performs the
dispersion to a fraction of the lower flammable limit (where the fraction is set in the Flammable
Parameters), using the Flammable Averaging Time (also set in the Flammable Parameters). If
you are interested in the details of the concentration results for a flammable material, you might
set an additional concentration of interest and a user-defined averaging time, but for this
analysis the effects from an immediate explosion are likely to be more significant than any later
cloud dispersion.
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Leave the Early Explosion Mass Modification Factor with its default value of 3. This factor
is used in calculating the mass involved in an early explosion. The program calculates the mass
of vapour in the cloud after it has expanded to atmospheric pressure, and then multiplies this
mass by the Modification Factor to obtain the explosion mass, with an upper limit set by the
flammable mass released.
Leave the TNT Explosion Efficiency with its default value of 10%. This determines the
fraction of the combustion energy in the explosion mass that is converted into explosion energy.
Set Air / Ground Burst to Ground Burst, which means that the explosion occurs near the
ground, i.e. at the same elevation as the release. For this type of explosion, the effects of
reflection from the ground are assumed to double the amount of energy involved in an explosion,
so this type will give the worst case results. These changes complete the data for the release, and
you can click on OK to save the edited data.
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Defining the Propylene Release
The propylene release differs from the ethylene release only in the Material data, so you can
create it as a copy of the Ethylene model, using the method described for creating the
hydrogen cyanide release. Give the copied model the name Propylene.
When you change the material, the program performs flash calculations to check the current
process conditions and updates the reported Phase and Fluid Type if necessary. At 32 oC and 48
barg, ethylene is a supercritical vapour but propylene is a liquid. Therefore, you will see the
Phase change from Liquid to Two-Phase and the Fluid Type change from Pressurised Liquid
to Saturated Liquid.
This completes the release data, and you can click on OK to save the edited values.
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Viewing the List of Global Materials
Move to the Materials tab section, and expand
the tree under the Global Materials folder.
You will see that icons for ETHYLENE and
PROPYLENE have been added to the folder;
each was added as a copy of the System version
when you selected the material in the input
dialog.
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Running the Calculations
To run the calculations for all of the Models, move back to the Models tab in tab in the Study
Tree and select the icon for the Worst Case Study, then start the run. There are three ways of
starting a run: you can select Model(s) from the Run menu or Run Model(s) from the right-
click menu, or you can press Ctrl+M.
You can follow the progress of the run in the Progress Meter, and also in the Message Log tab
section of the Log Window.
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Viewing the Results
The Graphs give the most direct way of viewing the results. To view the Graphs for a Model,
select that Model, then click Ctrl+G, or choose the Graph option from the View menu or the
right-click menu. The Plot Setup dialog will appear, prompting you for the weather to use, and
when you click on OK, the program will generate the Graphs, and display them in the Graph
Window. In this example we will view the Category 1.5/F weather, though you can view more
than one weather if you wish.
This aspect of the release makes the results quite complex, and you may find them difficult to
interpret at first, especially as the program gives much more detail in the results than in
previous versions and provides many more options.
The first thing to notice in Graphs of this type is the Time displayed in the legend. In the
illustration above, the time is given as 1881 s, and this is the time after the start of the release at
which the area covered by the 200 ppm contour (the contour for the concentration of interest)
was largest.
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To see the contours for other times, select Dynamic from the Graph menu or the right-click
menu, and the Cloud Dynamics Control will appear. You use this Control to view an animation
of the cloud dispersion. Note: The Dynamic option will not be available if you have selected
more than one weather from the Plot Setup screen.
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When you click on OK and return to the Time Graph, the Graph will change, and you can see
the concentration profile at the town. The Graph shows that a person at that point would only be
exposed to the cloud for about ten minutes, but the concentration during this time would be over
400 ppm. The 200 ppm concentration of interest is based on an exposure of an hour, so the
effects from this cloud should be small, but could still be unpleasant.
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This graph shows many vertical lines from 0 to 400 ppm. These represent the end points of
different cloud segments which are produced because the Ammonia release forms a pool which
vaporises at different rates. For further details on cloud segments please refer to the on-line
Help system.
If you use the Properties... option to set the distance of interest to 4.3 km and move to the
Time Graph, you will see that the duration of exposure at the town is just under one hour. In
addition, for some of this time, the concentration is almost four times the concentration of
interest of 10 ppm.
This indicates a much more significant hazard than the ammonia release, which reached twice
the concentration of interest for only ten minutes. However, the difference in the values for
concentration of interest makes it difficult to correctly compare the concentration results for
ammonia and hydrogen cyanide using the Map and Time Graphs. However, the Lethality Graph
(stored under the Toxic tab) allows you to compare the toxic effects directly, and you can also
plot the results for the two Models on the same Graph.
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The Lethality Graph shows the results for both Models, and it shows that the toxic effects of
the Hydrogen cyanide Model are worse than those for the Ammonia Model. However,
neither gives a significant probability of death at the town.
If you look at the Graphs for concentration, you will find that they are plotting the results for 200
ppm, i.e. the concentration of interest for ammonia. The program cannot plot a comparison of
the results for 10 ppm, because the calculations for ammonia stopped at 200 ppm, so it can only
compare the results for 200 ppm.
This comparison at 200 ppm may be misleading, because the inventory for the Hydrogen
cyanide Model is much smaller than for the Ammonia Model, and the cloud is diluted to 200
ppm much more quickly. This emphasizes that some Graphs are useful for some purposes
(e.g. getting the details of the results for a single Model, or for comparing Models that involve
the same material) whereas other Graphs are useful for other purposes (e.g. comparing Models
that involve different materials).
When you first move to the Map Graph, it will be displaying the concentration contours for the
two Models. This is the default option for the results displayed on the Map, but you can use
the Properties... option to change this.
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In the Display tab section, change the Map Event
from Dispersion to Late Explosion, as shown.
When you
have clicked
on OK and
the program
has redrawn
the Map
Graph, you
will see that
the
overpressure
radii to
0.02068 bar
do not
extend
outside the
boundary of
the site, and
pose no
threat to the
town, as
shown in the
illustration.
Page 33 of 36
Summary of Worst Case Analysis
The Worst Case analysis shows that the hydrogen cyanide inventory poses the greatest offsite
risk, although no scenarios are capable of causing fatalities at the town.
If you require any further information on any of these cases please contact your local Technical
Support desk or sign up for one of our training courses.
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