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PHAST Tutorial Manual PDF
PHAST Tutorial Manual PDF
Tutorial Manual
DNV SOFTWARE
Palace House, 3 Cathedral Street, London SE19DE, UK
http://www.dnv.com/software
Copyright Det Norske Veritas. All Rights Reserved.
No reproduction or broadcast of this material is permitted without the express written consent of DNV.
Contact software.risk@dnv.com for more information.
Contents
Chapter 1
An Introduction to PHAST
In the first chapter you open an example analysis provided with the program,
explore its main features, and run the calculations and view the results
without having to enter or change any input data.
Chapter 2
The second chapter guides you through the process of setting up a Study
Folder for performing consequence calculations for a range of common types
of hazardous event. The tutorial supplies all of the input values that you will
need to complete the analysis.
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Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 1
An Introduction to PHAST
What to Expect of this Tutorial
The aim of this tutorial is to make you familiar with the ideas and techniques involved
in performing a consequence analysis with PHAST, and to give you practice in
defining a range of common types of hazardous events. By the time you have finished
the tutorial you should have a firm understanding of the issues involved, and be ready
to start work on an analysis of your own.
The tutorial is divided into two chapters. In this first chapter you will open an example
analysis provided with the program, explore its main features, and run the calculations
and view the results without having to enter or change any input data. In the second
chapter you will create a new analysis, defining a range of hazardous events and
performing a consequence analysis for them.
The tutorial should take 1-2 hours to complete. You do not have to complete it in a
single sitting, and can take a break between chapters if you prefer.
Chapter 1: Introduction
The first line in the Message Log should state that the Licence is valid. You must
have a valid license for PHAST set up on your computer in order to be able to enter
data and run the calculations. If the Message Log says that you do not have a valid
license, you should contact product support using the details given under Product
Support in the Help menu.
The window will normally open with no Study Folder loaded where a Study
Folder is a file that contains the definition of a consequence analysis and you must
open or create a Study Folder file before you can perform any modelling work with the
program. If you wish, you can change the Installation Preferences under the Options
menu so that the program starts by automatically opening a Study Folder (e.g. the
Study Folder you worked on most recently).
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 1: Introduction
Inserting a Model
You cannot place a Model icon under the Study Folder itself,
but only under a Study or Folder. To add a Model at a
particular point in the structure, select the Study or Folder, and
then select the appropriate Model from the Insert menu as
shown. You can also insert a Model by selecting the Model
from the Insert cascade at the top of the right-click menu, or by
selecting the icon for the Model from the toolbar.
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 1: Introduction
The Models are represented by dots on the Map. These dots can sometimes be difficult
to see and to relate to the individual Models, but there are several options that can
make this easier:
Changing the Size and Colour of the Dots
Select Map from the Preferences cascade of
the Options menu to open the Map
Preferences dialog, and then move to the
Model tab section.
By default the colour is turquoise and
the Point Size is 7 pixels, but if you
change the colour to blue and the size to
10 pixels as shown, then the dots will be
easier to see on the powerstation Map.
Displaying the Model Names on the Map
If you move to the Models tab section, select any Model, and then select Labels from the
View menu, the names of all of the Models will be displayed on the Map. To hide the
names, deselect the Labels option.
If there is more than one Model at a given location as with the Chlorine Models and the
Butadiene Models then the names will be superimposed and may be difficult to read,
although this will make it clear that there are multiple Models at the location.
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 1: Introduction
The Help Window will be displaying a description of the current tab section, but you
can use the links inside the topic and the Contents, Index and Search tabs to reach any
topic in the Help system and gain a full understanding of the way that the input data
will be used in the calculations and the appropriate values that you should set for the
hazardous events that you want to model.
Most dialogs also have a Whats This Help button in
the form of a question mark at the right of the title bar.
If you click on this button, the cursor will
change to a question mark, showing that
you are in Whats This Help mode, and if
you then click on a field in the dialog, a
popup window will appear over the field,
describing the field and giving advice on
setting values, as shown.
There are some tab sections that appear in the input dialog for more than one Model.
For example, the Material tab section is used for both the Vessel/Pipe Source Model,
the User-Defined Source Model and the Bleve Blast Model. The Help is written in order
to give full guidance for either Model, so there may be references in the Help to
features that are not currently relevant to you.
After you have finished exploring the input dialog, click on Cancel to close the input
dialog without saving any changes you might have made. If you wish, you can move
to the other tab sections and explore the input dialogs for other types of data.
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 1: Introduction
The Graph Window will usually contain many tab sections, each with a different type
of graph. The tab sections included for a particular combination of Model will depend
on the type of the Models (e.g. Vessel/Pipe Source Model or Fireball Model), on the
type of the materials (toxic or flammable), and on the details of the dispersion and
effect behaviour (e.g. whether or not liquid rainout occurs). The Chlorine and
Butadiene Models have graphs for cloud concentration, for pool vaporisation, for toxic
effects, for jet fire, fireball and flash fire effects, and for explosion effects.
The Concentration Graphs
The first graph is of centreline concentration. This will be showing the results at the
time at which the cloud footprint covers the greatest area, which occurs at a different
time for each weather.
The graph will initially be showing results only for the four Chlorine Models. In the
dispersion calculations, the program uses an averaging time that takes into account
changes in wind direction over the course of the release, to give an average
concentration at a given location, and it uses different averaging times for toxic and for
flammable materials, reflecting the different time-scales that are relevant to each type
of release. The concentration graphs always display results calculated with a specific
averaging time, which is displayed in the legend for the graph. The default averaging
time for this set of results is the Toxic averaging time, and the Butadiene Models were
not modelled with that time so have no
results to display.
To view the concentration results for the
Butadiene Models, you must change the
selection of averaging time to display. To do
this, select Properties from the right-click
menu or the Graph menu to open the Plot
Properties dialog, and then move to the
Averaging Times tab section as shown.
If you change to the Flammable Averaging
Time, the graph will display the results for
the four Butadiene Models only.
The User Defined option will also be
enabled, which shows that some of the
Models have a user-defined averaging time defined in the Location tab section. In fact,
all of them have such a time defined, and if you select User Defined as the averaging
time for the graphs, the graph will display results for all eight Models.
Results Displayed on the Map
After the six tab sections that show the results in terms of concentration, the next tab
section is the Map graph, which allows you to view different types of effect zones
superimposed on the map.
When you first move to the Map tab section, the Map graph will be displaying Cloud
Footprint results for a concentration of 10,000 ppm for the Toxic averaging time, and
the only results displayed will be for the Chlorine Rupture and Chlorine Liquid Leak Models.
The other Chlorine Models dont produce this concentration level at the default height
of ground level as you can see from the Sideview graph but if you open the Plot
Properties dialog, move to the Distance tab and set the Height to 10 m, results for the
Chlorine Vapour Leak Model will also appear in the plot.
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Chapter 1: Introduction
11
Chapter 1: Introduction
As with the Graph Window, the Report Window will normally contain several types of
results, presented in different tab sections. A given tab section will present the results
for all of the weather conditions that have been processed for the Model.
For the Butadiene Rupture Model, the first tab section is the Input tab section, which lists
the input data. The Audit tab section gives version details for the program, for
parameters and materials, but all of the other tab sections give details of the
consequence results that you saw summarised in the Graph window:
The Summary Report
This report summarises
the maximum downwind
distance to different types
of effects, and gives a
direct comparison
between the different
weather conditions. For
the Butadiene Rupture, D 5m/s is the weather that gives the greatest distances, although the
difference between the three weathers is small.
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Chapter 1: Introduction
13
Chapter 1: Introduction
The ignition-time that gives the greatest downwind effect distance is the one presented
in the Worst Case Late Explosion graph, as described in the section above.
The range of reports presented for a particular Model will depend on the type of Model
and on the behaviour of a release, and there are additional reports that do not appear
for the Butadiene Rupture Model. For example, if the material is toxic then there will be a
Toxic report with a table of dose, probit and lethality results as a function of
downwind distance, and if the liquid in the release rains out to form a pool, then there
will be reports describing the spreading and evaporation of the pool and describing the
series of dispersion segments used to represent the vapour produced from the pool.
For most of your work with the program you will probably refer mainly to the graphs,
since they present the results in the most direct form and allow easy comparison
between different Models and Weathers.
After you have finished examining the results, you can use Close All from the Window
menu to close the windows.
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Chapter 1: Introduction
Viewing the Results for the Chimney Release and Long Pipeline Models
The other two Vessel/Pipe Source Models in the PHAST Example Study Study Folder
illustrate some of the special modelling features that are available.
The Chimney Release Model
This models a release of methane from a chimney stack on top of a building, and takes
into account the effects of the building wake on the dispersion.
If you view the graphs
for the Model for all
three Weathers and then
move to the Sideview
graph, you will see an
outline of the building
with the chimney on top,
and with the three
plumes emerging from
the chimney.
The building wake
produces a zone of low
pressure, and this pulls
the plumes downwards.
The model deals with this by adjusting the height at a specific downwind distance,
which is 100 m in this case. In some situations the plume may be pulled down low
enough that all or part of the plume is entrained in the building wake, but that has not
occurred for any of the weathers for this Model.
The Sideview graph shows that the plumes never approach closer to the ground than
about 58 m, but if you look at the Explosion graphs and the Flash Fire graph, you will
see Worst Case Late Explosion distances of over 900 m, and Flash Fire distances of
about 600 m to 50% of the LFL. When performing the modelling of late explosions and
flash fires, the program can calculate the flammable footprint of the cloud either at the
cloud centreline or at a specific height. The centreline method is selected by default in
the Flammable Parameters since this will give the most conservative results, but you
should check the Sideview graph and make a judgement about whether or not the
effect zone would actually reach the areas of interest for your analysis. A flash fire in a
plume 60 m in the air would not affect people on the ground, but an explosion in such
a plume might well produce significant overpressures at ground level.
The Long Pipeline Model
This models the rupture of a 250 m propane pipeline that has a pumped flowrate of 10
kg/s, where the rupture occurs 100 m downstream from the pump. The program
performs discharge modelling for the complex, time-dependent flow regime inside the
ruptured pipeline and then performs dispersion modelling for a representative
averaged discharge rate.
Select the Model, and view the graphs for the F 1.5m/s weather. For this analysis the
discharge calculations are the same for all weather conditions, so you only need to
view one weather if you are only interested in the discharge results.
The first tab section in the Graph window will be the Long Pipeline tab. This contains a
large number of sub-tabs, each of which shows the behaviour of a particular discharge
variable against time. Move to the Flowrate sub-tab, since this shows the behaviour of
the most important variable.
15
Chapter 1: Introduction
16
Chapter 1: Introduction
If you view the Discharge report for the Model, you will see that the average rate used
to represent the behaviour is 10.5 kg/s, taken over a time-scale of one hour. This may
underestimate the hazard produced by the release, and there are options available for
representing a time-varying release with more than one release segment so that you
can investigate the significance of the type of short-term behaviour seen in this release.
These options are described in more detail in the next chapter.
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Chapter 2
Setting up your own Analysis
The Form of the Analysis
This chapter will guide you through the process of setting up a Study Folder for
performing consequence calculations. The tutorial supplies all of the input values that
you will need to complete the analysis.
A pipework leak from the liquid side of a vessel containing a toxic material
A pipework leak from the gas side of a vessel containing a toxic material
If you wish, you can omit events, define different events, or change the input values in
order to define conditions that are more typical of your facility. However, if you do this
you will obtain results that are different from those that will be shown in this manual.
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For this tutorial, leave the Ventilation Specification with the default value of Case
Specified, and take the default values for the Building exchange rate and the Tail time.
The TNT, Multi Energy and Baker Strehlow Tab Sections
The fields in these tab section are disabled when the material is toxic only. They are
used in the modelling of a vapour cloud explosion.
The Discharge Parameters Tab Section
The fields in this tab section are always enabled, and take their default values from the
System Parameters. They are used in the discharge modelling for the Line Rupture,
Disc Rupture and Relief Valve scenarios, so are not relevant to this Model.
The Jet Fire, Pool Fire and Fireball Tab Sections
For a flammable release, these tab sections allow you to choose between options for
modelling each type of flame.
A Summary of the Input Data
The input process involves examining a large number of input fields, but the number
of values that you have to enter in order to complete the data for this Model is small, as
shown in the table below:
Tab Section
Material
Location
Toxic
parameters
Input Field
Discharge Material
Inventory
Process Conditions
Elevation
East Co-ordinate
North Co-ordinate
Concentration of
interest
Uses averaging time
Indoor Toxic
Calculations
Value
Chlorine
102 m3
Saturated Liquid at 10oC.
7.37 m
198492 m
435063 m
100 ppm
Toxic
Selected
The default scenario for a Vessel/Pipe Source Model is a catastrophic rupture out of
doors, so there is no need to change any settings in the Scenario tab section for this
particular Model.
If you have made all of these settings, the input data for the Model are now complete,
and you can click on OK to close the dialog. You should see that the icon no longer has
a red border, showing that it has a full set of input data.
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Set the Liquid Head to 4.6 m, select the Time Varying Release option, set the Tank
Type to Spherical, the Height of Discharge to zero, and the Diameter to 6.74 m. Leave
the Rates versus time set to the default selection of Average rate with an averaging
time of 3600 s; you can return to make a final selection after you have viewed the
discharge results.
Location Tab Section
Set the Elevation to 0.1 m. With this setting, the liquid droplets will probably not
evaporate inside the cloud, and will probably rain out and form a vaporising pool.
Leave the other fields with the same values as for the rupture. In reality, the releaselocation would be offset by a few metres from the centre of the sphere but this
difference is insignificant compared with the effect distances for chlorine and can be
ignored
Bund Data Tab Section
Leave this unchanged, with no bund specified.
Indoor/Outdoor Tab Section
For a continuous release scenario such as line rupture you must specify the Direction
of the release. Choose Horizontal from the list, which is the correct setting for this type of
unobstructed rupture of horizontal pipework.
The list of directions includes a second horizontal option: Horizontal Impingement. You
should select this option if the release is in a congested area and the release is likely to
impinge on a wall or other equipment; the program will reduce the momentum of the
release, which will reduce the amount of air mixed into the jet during the initial stages.
Discharge Parameters
There is one bend in the 9 m of pipework, so you can set the Frequency of Bends to
0.11 per m.
This completes the input data for this stage, and you can click on OK to close the input
dialog.
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Input Field
Scenario Type
Phase Released
Pipe Length
Internal Diameter
Time-Varying Release?
Tank Head
Elevation
Frequency of Bends
Value
Line Rupture
Liquid
9m
1 inch
Not selected
4.6 m
0.1 m
0.11 per m
The default direction for a line rupture scenario is Horizontal, so there is no need to
change any settings in the Indoor/Outdoor tab section for this particular Model.
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Input Field
Phase Released
Pipe Length
Internal Diameter
Elevation
Direction
Discharge Parameters
Frequency of Bends
Value
Vapour
13 m
2 inch
1m
Down Impinging on
the Ground
0.08 per m
When the phase is set to Vapour in the Scenario tab section, the Building Wake Effect
fields will become enabled. The sphere is in an open area so building-wake effects are
not relevant to this release, and you can leave these options unchecked.
The release rate from the two-inch vapour line is similar to that from the one-inch
liquid line, and the two pipework releases give very similar effect distances.
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If you move to the Models tab of the Study Tree and look at the Jet Fire, Pool Fire or
Fireball tab sections for any of the flammable Models, you will see that the lethality
calculations are now selected, with the five levels set.
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Explosion Graphs
The two Early Explosion graphs contain results only for the Rupture, since immediate
explosions are assumed not to occur for continuous releases. However, the Late
Explosion graphs contain results for all three Models.
The Late Explosion Worst Case graph shows the effect radii for the explosion-time
which gives the greatest downwind distance for the lowest overpressure set in the
Explosion Parameters (0.02 bar), and the legend for the Late Explosion Time graph
gives the time at which the worst-case explosion occurs. The greatest downwind effect
distances is 1,100 m, for the Rupture, and it occurs at 11.2 s.
Flash Fire Graph
The Flash Fire Graph shows the zone for the cloud at the time that it covers the
maximum area. For the rupture, this gives a maximum downwind effect distance of
350 m to 10,000 ppm, whereas for the two pipework releases this gives a distance of
about 70 m to the same concentration. 10,000 ppm is 50% of the LFL, which is the
fraction set by default in the Flammable Parameters as the boundary of the flash fire
effect zone.
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By default there are no confined regions selected, which means that there are no
mandatory fields in the tab section and that the Model will run even if you do not set
any values in the tab section but it also means that by default the Model will not
produce any explosion results.
For this tutorial you will define three
regions of confinement, each occupying
30% of the volume of the cloud, and with
a range of confinement strengths between
6 and 8, as shown. Values of 8 and 9 are
typically used for process units, but the
region around the propane sphere is
relatively open.
The strength of an explosion in the
unconfined region of the cloud will be 2,
as shown.
Click on OK to close the dialog for the Multi-Energy Model.
Setting the Inputs for the Baker-Strehlow Explosion Method
Open the input dialog for the Baker Strehlow Model, move to the Flammable tab section,
and choose Baker Strehlow as the Explosion Method.
Next, move to the Baker-Stehlow tab section. This tab section contains many
mandatory fields, and you must complete this tab section before you can run the
Model.
For this tutorial, use the option to have the
program calculate the speed of the flame (rather
than supplying it yourself). For a propane release
you should set the Material Reactivity to Medium,
and for this release you should set the number of
dimensions for the Flame Expansion to 2, and the
Obstacle Density to Medium, as shown.
The release is relatively close to the ground and
there is likely to be some reflection of the
pressure-waves off the ground, so you should set
the Ground Reflection Factor to 1.6. Finally, the volume of the cloud assumed to be
involved in the explosion is 500 m3.
Click on OK to close the dialog for the Baker-Strehlow Model.
Running the Calculations and Viewing the Results
Select the Rupture folder, run the calculations, and then view the graphs for the 1.5/F
Weather.
In the Early Explosion Distance graph, the Baker-Strehlow Model has the highest peak
overpressure, of about 1.02 barg, but the pressure declines rapidly with distance and
there are no effects beyond about 300 m. The TNT Model produces a peak pressure of 1
barg and the pressure declines less rapidly with distance, so the pressure at 300 m is 0.2
barg, and there are effects out to 1,400 m. For the Multi-Energy Model, the graph shows
results only for the unconfined region of the cloud, for which the peak overpressure is
only about 0.02 barg.
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However, in the Early Explosion Radii graph the results shown for the Multi-Energy
Model are those for the worst case, and in this comparison the Multi-Energy Model gives
the greatest effect distances of the three Models, with a distance of about 2 km to 0.02
barg.
If you view the graphs for the Multi-Energy Model on its own and select only the 1.5/F
Weather, you will be able to see separate Early Explosion Distance results for each of
the regions in the cloud. These results show that the over-pressure levels close to the
release are very strongly dependent on the value that you set for the strength of
confinement.
This analysis shows that, for this release, the default TNT method gives results that are
close to the multi-energy results with a medium strength of confinement (i.e. with a
strength of 7). It seems reasonable and simplest - to take the default method as
representative for this analysis.
Input Field
Inventory
Elevation
North co-ordinate
Value
43.2 m3
1.8 m
435581 m
Input Field
Scenario Type
Hole Diameter
Tank Head
Elevation
Direction
Value
Leak
1 inch
1.95 m
0.5 m
Down Impinging on the Ground
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For a release from the body of a vessel rather than from attached pipework, you should
set the Scenario Type to Leak. This will give a larger discharge rate since there are no
frictional losses during the flow to the leak-location. For the leak scenario, you specify
the leak-size in the Scenario tab section.
The leak is assumed to be at the bottom of the tank, which is the most conservative
assumption for the tank head and the duration.
Fireball Shape
Radiation Data
Input Field
Material
East Location
North Location
Burst Pressure
Released Mass
Mass Vapour Fraction
Radiation vs Distance
Maximum Distance
Angle from Wind
Height above Origin
Radiation Ellipse
Incident Radiation
Value
PROPANE
197327 m
435581 m
8.57 barg
22.2e3 kg
0.25
Selected
500 m
0 degrees
0m
Selected
4 kW/m2
The Burst Pressure is 60% greater than the normal operating pressure and is used in
calculating the surface emissive power of the fireball.
The Fireball Shape tab section gives you the choice between using a correlation to
obtain the radius, duration and emissive power, or entering your own values. For this
Model, you are using the correlation.
The dialog also contains a Contour Data tab section that allows you to define a plane
and up to three radiation levels for which you want contour results.
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What Next?
This tutorial has not covered every feature of the program, but you should now have
enough of an understanding of the approach and methods used in the program to be
able to explore the remaining features yourself, with the assistance of the online Help.
If you need further details on any aspect of the program, or if you need guidance on
how to model a particular situation for your facility, you should contact product
support using the details given under Product Support in the Help menu.
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