The European experience on developing and communicating worst-case scenarios for accidental releases of hazardous materials
- European Commission, Brussels (Belgium). Industrial Safety Research
- Von Karman Inst. for Fluid Dynamics, Rhode St. Genese (Belgium)
Europe has a large chemical industry and a high population density. The differing legislative contexts of risk analysis in the countries of Europe provide a rich source for comparing different approaches. In this paper, the authors draw on the European experience to consider the advantages and disadvantages of a worst case scenario approach. The escape of the total contents of a large storage vessel of hazardous materials can cause effects over a large distance. Typically, a large flammable release could cause deaths over a distance of hundreds of meters and damage over a number of kilometers. For toxic releases the situation is even worse, since whereas flammable releases may be considered non-hazardous when they have diluted below their lower flammable limit, toxic gases can disable or kill concentrations of less than 1%. Generally, the complete failure of a large storage vessel of ammonia, chlorine or hydrogen fluoride instable atmospheric conditions could travel many kilometers before being diluted sufficiently not to be a health risk.
- OSTI ID:
- 287554
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-950927-; ISBN 0-8169-0660-2; TRN: IM9639%%143
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: International conference and workshop on modeling and mitigating the consequences of accidental releases of hazardous materials, New Orleans, LA (United States), 26-29 Sep 1995; Other Information: PBD: 1995; Related Information: Is Part Of International conference and workshop on modeling and mitigating the consequences of accidental releases of hazardous materials; PB: 1044 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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