AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF SPREADING LIQUID POOLS

摘要

Assessment of the hazards posed by the storage of flammable or toxic liquids in large tanks can be assisted by the used of mathematical models to calculate the consequences of leakages. These consequences may include fires or explosions from dispersion of flammable vapours, harm to persons from inhalation of toxic vapours or harm to the environment. One component of such models is a mathematical representation of the spreading of a liquid pool, and in recent years a number of pool spread models have been proposed and implemented. However, there are a number of issues in the formulation of the spreading models that have yet to be resolved. In particular, one area of uncertainty is the boundary condition applied at the front of the spreading pool. Boundary conditions which are generally accepted as applicable to the spread of oil on water and to the dispersion of a cloud of dense gas in air may not be applicable to the spread of a liquid on land, as the balance of competing physical phenomena at the spread front is quite different. Resolution of the uncertainties this creates has been hampered by a lack of reliable experimental data at a large scale. As a result, the Health and Safety Executive have contracted Advantica to carry out a series of "liquid spread on land" experiments at their Spadeadam Test Site to provide a sufficiently detailed database to resolve this issue. This paper gives details of the experimental programme and presents selected results from it.