Atmospheric dispersion source for gas release inside a building

César A. Leal, PhD

Abstract
When an accidental release of a gas occurs inside an enclosed structure, such as a
building, the modeling of the source term for atmospheric gas dispersion requires an
extra step. We present a simple model to calculate the gas exhaust rate for the case of a
constant release inside of an enclosure of known volume, for two cases: with and
without ventilation. In both cases, given enough time, the rate of gas exhausting the
enclosure becomes equal to the rate of release inside the building. Besides source
strength, we also present the expressions for the concentration of the gas (v/v)
exhausting the building.

Introduction
In the field of risk analysis, when estimating the physical effects of accidental releases
of dangerous gases, the first step is to evaluate the amount of gas released to the
atmosphere as a function of time, or the source strength. Once this is established, the
next step is to use an appropriate tool for estimating the dispersion of the gas in the
atmosphere to obtain information about the gas concentration distribution downwind
from the release point.
The origin of the gas released has a wide range of possibilities, such as directly from the
pressurized gas phase of a system, liquid pool evaporation, adiabatic flash of liquefied
gas, thermal decomposition associated to the combustion of materials etc. Many
technical references contain models for estimating the amount of gas that becomes
airborne in all of the cases mentioned; see for instance, Yellow Book TNO 2005 or Lees
2006.
However, when the release occurs inside of a building the actual release to the
atmosphere goes through a previous mixing with the air inside of the building before the
release to the atmosphere. We discuss only the case of a constant release rate.
We present a simple model of this intermediate phase, the mixing inside the building
and its effect on the actual source strength.

Modification of the source strength for releases inside buildings

First, we discuss the case where there is no ventilation. The model we propose here is a
very simple one, given a known release rate G (kg/s) of a gas inside a building of
volume V (m3), if we consider that the gas released is instantaneously diluted inside the
building, and that pressure inside the building remains constant, the following balance
of mass conservation applies.

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 𝑑𝑚
= 𝑔𝑎𝑠 𝑖𝑛 − 𝑔𝑎𝑠 𝑜𝑢𝑡
𝑑𝑡

𝑑𝑚 𝐺
=𝐺− 𝑚
𝑑𝑡 𝜌. 𝑉
Where,
m(t) = amount of mass inside the building at time t, [kg]
ρ = gas density, [kg/m3]
The initial condition is m(0) = 0 .
The solution of this ordinary differential equation is:
𝐺
− 𝑡
𝑚(𝑡) = 𝜌. 𝑉(1 − 𝑒 𝜌.𝑉 )

The source strength is the second term of the right hand side of the balance equation of
the mass balance equation, in kg/s,
𝐺
− 𝑡
𝑆(𝑡) = 𝐺(1 − 𝑒 𝜌.𝑉 )
According to this expression, at the initial instant (t=0) the source intensity is zero, as
required by the initial condition, and for t  S=G, as expected
The bigger the ratio G/V, the faster the rate of release reaches the asymptotic value, as
seen in Figure 1. In the just mentioned figure, the ratio G/V for S1 is five times bigger
than the value of S2, which is five times bigger than S3.
The concentration of the gas released, in v/v, is,
𝐺
−𝜌.𝑉 𝑡
𝐶(𝑡) = (1 − 𝑒 )
If the duration of the release is limited to a time interval up to T units of time, the
maximum value of the source strength will be,
𝐺
−𝜌.𝑉 𝑇
𝑆𝑚𝑎𝑥 = 𝑆(𝑇) = 𝐺(1 − 𝑒 )

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 Figure 1- Source strength versus time for three different values of the ratio G/V

Let us examine now the case where the building has also ventilation. If the ventilation
happens at a given rate, such as R (m3/s), assuming the same premises as before, the
balance equation for conservation of mass becomes.
𝑑𝑚 𝐺 𝑚
= 𝐺 − (𝑅 + ).
𝑑𝑡 𝜌 𝑉
Which has the following solution,
𝐺. 𝑉 𝐺 𝑡
−(𝑅+𝜌 )𝑉
𝑚(𝑡) = (1 − 𝑒 )
𝐺
(𝑅 + )
𝜌
And from this last expression, one obtains the source strength by taking the product of
the volumetric outflow of gas R+G/ρ times the average gas concentration m/V, resulting
in:
𝐺 𝑡
−(𝑅+𝜌 )𝑉
𝑆(𝑡) = 𝐺(1 − 𝑒 )
The effect of adding the ventilation is to speed up the rate of growth of the amount of
gas leaving the building, or to speed up the rate of growth of the source strength. This
result may seem counter intuitive, the addition of air as ventilation makes the rate of
growth of the source steeper than the case of no ventilation just analyzed. In order to
understand this, one has to realize that with added ventilation, the gas is leaving the
building with extra dilution, that is, in terms of mass per unit time at a given time the
source strength grows faster than the case of no ventilation, but the gas is leaving the
building with the ventilation air added, so its concentration is smaller than in the case of
no ventilation.

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The concentration of the gas leaving the enclosure (v/v) is equal to the ratio of the
stream of pure gas plus the rate of release of air (R)
Similarly, to the previous consideration, if the source duration were limited to a time T,
the maximum source strength would be,
𝐺 𝑇
−(𝑅+𝜌 )𝑉
𝑆𝑚𝑎𝑥 = 𝑆(𝑇) = 𝐺(1 − 𝑒 )
In addition, for times greater than T, the source expression should be,
𝐺 𝑇 𝑅
−(𝑅+ )
𝑆(𝑡) = 𝐺 (1 − 𝑒 𝜌 𝑉 ) . 𝑒 −𝑉 𝑡

Similarly, to the procedure used before, we will find an expression for the concentration
of the gas leaving the enclosure. The concentration in the stream leaving the enclosure
is just the ratio of the stream of pure gas divided by the sum of pure gas plus air.
𝐺
𝐺 𝑡
𝜌 −(𝑅+ )
𝜌 𝑉)
𝐶(𝑡) = (1 − 𝑒
𝐺
(𝑅 + )
𝜌
Therefore, the asymptotic value or maximum concentration (v/v) for the gas leaving the
enclosure is the ratio of gas volumetric flow (G/ρ) to the sum of this volumetric flow
plus de volumetric flow of air (R).
𝐺
𝜌
𝐶𝑚𝑎𝑥 =
𝐺
+𝑅
𝜌

Conclusions
In this work, we developed formulas to estimate the rate of exhaustion of gas from a
building, in which a gas is leaking at a constant rate inside of it, for two situations with
and without ventilation. The main simplification was to assume instantaneous dilution
of the gas inside the building volume. Given enough time, the rate of release to the
outside of the building is the same rate of release inside, as one would expect from the
conservation of mass.
The building plays the role of a delay in the rate of release of the gas to the atmosphere.
The smaller is the ratio the rate of gas release to the volume of the building the slower
the release to the outside becomes closer to the rate of release of gas inside. Given
enough time, the rate of exhaust becomes equal to the rate of release inside the building
and as a pure gas.
As one would expect, ventilation adds to the dilution of the gas inside and exhausting
the building.
For a constant release rate of gas inside the building, the exhaust rate tends to the same
value of the rate of release inside, both with and without ventilation.

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When ventilation is present, the gas leaves the building more diluted than when there is
no ventilation and the maximum concentration at the exhaust tends to the ratio of the
volumetric flow of pure gas released inside the building to the sum of this just
mentioned volumetric flow rate plus the rate of air building ventilation.

References
Lees, F.P – “Loss Prevention in the Process Industries”, Butterworth-Heinemann,
Second Edition, 1996.
Yellow Book, CPR 14E, “Methods for the calculation of physical effects due to releases
of hazardous materials (liquid and gases)”, TNO 2005.