(137e) Hazards Management for Building Locations through Air Dispersion Modeling

Oil, gas, and petrochemical industries have reached a critical era involving its timeworn infrastructure. Previously, facilities degraded with minimal effort allocated for updates that ensure personnel safety (i.e., process inventory isolation, automative control systems, etc.). More recently, industry as a whole is progressively adopting a more safety conscientious attitude about personnel and the environment. These personnel and environmental concerns are driving new codes, standards, recommended practices, and regulations to be developed and implemented. Safety studies are being performed which assess facilities to determine if these new regulations are met, while providing key insight to eliminate any deficiencies that are discovered. Available advanced air dispersion models estimate or predict the concentration of air pollutants or toxicants emitted from various sources such as industrial plants, road traffic vehicles or accidental chemical releases. Facility siting assessments are amongst the required studies used for managing the risk to on-site personnel located in new and existing buildings intended for occupancy, where air dispersion models can be used to determine the consequences of accidental releases of hazardous or toxic materials. This paper discusses case studies carried out for hazards management for building locations with different air dispersion modeling software tools including: SCREEN3, AERMOD, ALOHA, and PHAST.