Assessing Potential Impacts of Releases from Highly Volatile Liquid (HVL) Pipelines
Operators of pipelines carrying highly volatile liquid (HVL) or similar products (e.g. natural gas liquids, propane, butane, etc.) need to understand the potential impacts from release incidents. This consequence analysis contributes to meeting the requirements of the US DOT Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s (PHMSA) hazardous liquids pipeline transportation regulations (49 CFR § 195) or other similar regulations. The outputs from this analysis, the geographic areas where impacts may occur, can be used to identify where impacts to high consequence areas (HCA) are possible. More generally, this analysis can support better decision-making about risk and mitigation. HVL products, while transported as liquids (under pressure or at regulated temperatures), can be released as vapor and/or liquid depending on the composition of the product.
Key Details
Project Name
Client
Undisclosed North American pipeline operator
Sector
- Energy
Location
- North America
Services Provided
- Modelling
- Environment
- Health, safety and risk
- Spatial Intelligence and GIS
By analyzing the composition of the released HVL product and simulating releases of both vapors and liquids, RPS can help pipeline operators fully understand the potential impacts from these pipelines. An undisclosed pipeline operator needed to understand the potential impacts of hypothetical releases from 11 pipelines, totaling over 600 miles in length, comprising a major HVL pipeline system. The pipeline system transports a range of HVL products with varying compositions. RPS helped characterize full-bore rupture releases for each product, including the magnitude (release rate), duration, and proportion of liquid and vapor released. Both vapor dispersion and liquid trajectory and fate release simulations were performed to determine the potential areas impacted by a release. Vapor dispersion modeling was used to predict the maximum distance from the pipeline that harmful vapor concentrations could exceed to explosive and human health related limits. Liquid plume modeling was performed to assess the overland and downstream trajectory and fate of the liquid portion of the release.
Challenge
Solution
Project Statistics
pipelines
miles of pipeline
vapor dispersion scenarios
overland liquid release simulations
Related services
Spatial intelligence and GIS
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Health, safety and risk
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Environment
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OILMAPLand
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