Abstract
We study the doses generated by instantaneously released dense gas clouds. The dose is of practical importance since it is widely used as a measure of the harmful effect of an exposure. We take the doses from wind-tunnel experimental data. We extend from Davies' (1992) work to show that for later times after release the dose across repeat experiments may be fitted with a lognormal distribution. A simple box model is constructed from the dataset. It produces a reasonable model under some of the experimental conditions. We show how to use the repeats of experiments to produce a representative model.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Carn, K., Sherrell, S. J., and Chatwin, P. C.: 1988, Analysis of Thorney Island Data: Variability and Box Models, in J. S. Puttock (ed.), Stably Stratified Flow and Dense Gas Dispersion, Clarendon Press, Oxford, U.K., pp. 205–231.
Chatwin, P. C. and Sullivan, P. J.: 1989, ‘The Intermittency Factor of Scalars in Turbulence’, Phys. Fluids, A 1(4), 761–763.
Davies, J. K. W.: 1992, ‘The CEC Major Technological Hazards Project BA: Research on Continuous and Instantaneous Heavy Gas Clouds’, J. Hazardous Materials 31, 177–186.
Fay, J. A. and Ranck, D.: 1981, ‘Scale Effects in Liquified Fuel Vapor Dispersion’, Report DOE/EP-0032, US Dept. of Energy, Washington, DC, USA.
Griffiths, R. F. and Megson, L. C.: 1984, ‘The Effect of Uncertaincies in Human Toxic Response on Hazard Range Estimation for Ammonia and Chlorine’, Atmospheric Environment 18, 1195–1206.
Griffiths, R. F. and Harper, A. S.: 1985, ‘A Speculation on the Importance of Concentration Fluctuations in the Estimation of Toxic Response to Irritant Gases’, J. Hazardous Materials 11, 369–372.
Hall, D. J., Waters, R. A., Marsland, G. W., Upton, S. L. and Emmott, M. A.: 1991, ‘Repeat Variability in Instantaneously Released Heavy Gas Clouds — Some Windtunnel Experiments’, Report LR 804(PA), Warren Spring Laboratory, Stevenage, England.
König-Langlo, G. and Schatzmann, M.: 1991, ‘Wind Tunnel Modeling of Heavy Gas Dispersion’, Atmos. Environ. 25A, 1189–1198.
Lewis, D. M. and Chatwin, P. C.: 1995, ‘The Treatment of Atmospheric Dispersion Data in the Presence of Noise and Baseline Drift’, Boundary-Layer Meteorol. 72, 53–85.
Lilliefors, H. W.: 1969, ‘On the Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test for the Exponential Distribution with Mean Unknown’, J. Amer. Stats. Assoc. 64, 387–389.
McQuaid, J. and Roebuck, B.: 1985, ‘Large Scale Field Trials on Dense Vapour Dispersion’, Final Report to the Sponsors on the Heavy Gas Dispersion Trials at Thorney Island 1982–84, Health and Safety Executive, Sheffield, England.
Mole, N.: 1990, ‘A Model of Instrument Smoothing and Thresholding in Measurements of Turbulent Dispersion’, Atmos. Environ. 24A, 1313–1323.
Prince, A. J., Webber, D. M. and Brighton, P. W. M.: 1985, ‘Thorney Island Heavy Gas Dispersion Trials — Determination of Path and Area of Cloud from Photographs’, Report SRD R 318, U.K.A.E.A. Safety and Reliability Directorate, Culcheth, Warrington, England
Ride, D. J.: 1984, ‘An Assessment of the Effects of Fluctuations on the Severity of Poisoning by Toxic Vapours’, J. Hazardous Materials 9, 235–240.
Robinson, C., Lewis, D. M. and Chatwin, P. C.: 1995, ‘The Pitfalls of Thresholding Atmospheric Dispersion Data’, Boundary-Layer Meteorol. 73, 183–188.
Schatzmann, M., Marotzke, K., Donat, J.: 1990, ‘Research on Continuous and Instantaneous Heavy Gas Clouds’, Final Report on Project BA (Report IR/L/HA/90/11), Meteorological Institute, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.
Sherrell, S. J.: 1987, ‘Fitting Box Models to the Thorney Island Phase I Dataset’, J. Hazardous Materials 16, 395–410.
Sherrell, S. J.: 1988, ‘The Validation of Two Box Models Predicting Dense Gas Dispersion with Experimental Data’, Ph.D. Thesis, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, England.
Webber, D. M.: 1983, ‘The Physics of Heavy Gas Cloud Dispersal’, Report SRD R243, U.K.A.E.A. Safety and Reliability Directorate, Culcheth, Warrington, England.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Sweatman, W.L., Chatwin, P.C. Dosages from instantaneous releases of dense gases in wind tunnels and into a neutrally stable atmosphere. Boundary-Layer Meteorol 77, 211–231 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00123525
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00123525