Gone with the wind: Ventjet is a new engineering model for atmospheric dispersion

Abstract

Modeling atmospheric dispersion of flammable and toxic gases is very common in the industry. There is a large spectrum of different models, from Gaussian, Integral, up to computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models. However, these simple engineering models (Gaussian, Integral) do not always correctly estimate the dispersion of gases with a density higher than air. The purpose of this paper is to present an alternative/new model Ventjet dedicated to the atmospheric dispersion of various gases, including light gases (hydrogen, methane, etc.), neutral gases (nitrogen, oxygen), and heavy gases (CO2, LNG, etc.). Ventjet takes into account various weather condition profiles, namely neutral D and stable F. The effect of the ground is also integrated into Ventjet. Ventjet can be used for various releases, including vertical, angled, and even into the wind. Ventjet has been broadly validated versus multiple measurements from wind tunnel and field experiments, as well as CFD simulations.