Overview of Petroleum Environmental Research Forum (PERF) dense gas dispersion modeling project

This paper provides a background for and an overview of the results of a co mprehensive study of transport and dispersion of dense gas plumes over roug h surfaces typical of industrial sites. The Petroleum Environmental Researc h Forum (PERF) 93-16 project involved modal development and evaluations usi ng observations from three wind tunnels and from the Kit Fox field experime nt. Detailed discussions of the results of the research are given in the ot her papers in this special issue. The wind tunnel experiments produced data showing that the resulting best-fit Vertical entrainment formula was close to (i.e., within about 30%) the vertical entrainment formulas already in u se by current models, which were derived primarily from observations over s mooth surfaces. Observations from the Kit Fox field experiment demonstrated the validity of the entrainment curves derived from the wind tunnel data. The Kit Fox data were also used to evaluate algorithms for along-wind dispe rsion and cloud advection speeds for short-duration releases typical of an industrial site, and to evaluate the HEGADAS dense gas dispersion model. (C ) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.