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Gas release
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The leak rate of gas from a pressurized storage vessel or a pipeline will depend on the
following factors:
- Leak size
- Gas composition and physical properties
- Pressure of gas
- Temperature of gas
- Volume and geometry of the containment
- Whether condensation will occur or not
p1 = ambient pressure
p2 = pressure inside containment
γ = cp/cv ratio of spec.heat
the velocity of the escaping gas will be sonic at the leak point. Otherwise it will be subsonic.
The sonic gas rate may be calculated as
where
For the case of subsonic gas rate a correction factor ψ has to be included in equation above,
defined as
A constant gas leak rate can be used only for releases from containments where the energy
loss
due to friction is negligible (e.g. from storage tanks). It is also only valid for the first minutes
of the release, after the onset of the leak. As the leak continious the pressure inside the vessel
will decrease, as will the leak rate. The release rate decay will basically be dependent on two
factors:
initial (constant) leak rate and mass of gas inside the vessel.
The decay of the leak rate will be exponential and can roughly be described by the following
equation:
where
Reference: Scandpower A/S,SINTEF-NBL"Handbook for Fire Calculations and Fire Risk Assessment in the Process Industry" 3rd
Edition 1997
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