The development of initial isolation and protective action distances table for US DOT (Department of Transportation) publication, 1990 Emergency Response Guidebook

Conference · Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1990

OSTI ID:6956540

Maloney, D M; Policastro, A J; Coke, L ^[1]; Dunn, W ^[2]

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1. Argonne National Lab., IL (USA)
2. Illinois Univ., Urbana, IL (USA). Dept. of Mechanical Engineering

The US Department of Transportation's 1990 Emergency Response Guidebook will provide an updated Initial Isolation and Protective Action Distances Table guiding first responders during the first 30 minutes of a toxic chemical release from a transportation accident. This paper summarizes the methodology and models used to prepare that table and discusses the major technical issues that were faced in its development. The modeling carried out for the 1990 Table attempted to improve the physics of the source-term release and atmospheric dispersion. Realistic gaseous and liquid accident release scenarios were identified for each of 140 chemicals. The downwind impact was then computed for releases of each chemical from a variety of appropriate container sizes. Among the submodels used in the source-term and transport modeling were gaseous and liquid release models for the various sizes of containers, pool evaporation models, a flashing model, and an atmospheric dispersion model. A key issue for future study involves the use of the various toxicological guidelines that are presently available for the various chemicals, considering that no single exposure limit has been determined for all chemicals of interest for emergency response planning, and there is no uniform guidance by the toxicologists on the use of the various exposure guidelines in the presence of time-dependent exposures. 10 refs., 2 figs., 2 tabs.

• Research Organization: Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: DOT
• DOE Contract Number: W-31109-ENG-38
• OSTI ID: 6956540
• Report Number(s): CONF-900351-3; ON: DE90010085
• Resource Relation: Conference: 3. annual presentation: HazMat Central, Rosemont, IL (USA), 13-15 Mar 1990
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS//MATHEMATICS, COMPUTING, AND INFORMATION SCIENCE
10 SYNTHETIC FUELS
HAZARDOUS MATERIALS SPILLS
EMERGENCY PLANS
CHEMICAL SPILLS
GAS SPILLS
MANUALS
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
METEOROLOGY
MOTOR VEHICLE ACCIDENTS
SOURCE TERMS
TOXIC MATERIALS
TRANSPORT
TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS
US DOT
ACCIDENTS
DOCUMENT TYPES
MATERIALS
NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
US ORGANIZATIONS
570000* - Health & Safety
100500 - Synthetic Fuels- Transport
Handling
& Storage- (1990-)