The use of spreadsheets in modelling accidental releases of toxic chemicals

Many hazardous industrial chemicals are stored as liquidfied compressed gases. To evaluate the possible consequences of a pipeline rupture, hose break, or tank puncture, the safety or process engineer needs a means to estimate the two-phase (liquid and gas) flow rate. Recent technical advances by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Design Institute of Emergency Relief Systems (DIERS) have produced methods that can be used to compute the two-phase flow rate. These methods are simple and can be completed using a personal computer and a standard spreadsheet program such as Excel (Macintosh) or Lotus (DOS based). This paper presents the two-phase flow rate calculation method and shows how spreadsheets can be used for these calculations.