Abstract Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) is a byproduct of the refinery industry during the catalytic cracking and pyrolysis of crude oil, consisting of propane, propylene, butane and butene which are flammable and explosive. Once the leakage occurs, it would lead to disastrous consequence. Based on the computational fluid dynamics (CFD), this paper carried out research on the diffusion and characters of the twophase cloud from an instantaneous release using commercial software Fluent under different wind field. The EulerLagrangian approach was applied to the simulation, where the continuous phase was computed by Euler method and droplets by Lagrangian method respectively, the effect of wind was analyzed from both the macroscopic cloud and microscopic droplet. Results showed that the cloud shape varied from the initial sphere to the ellipsoid along the horizontal direction, and the cloud moved faster at a higher wind speed while the concentration decreased at the same time. The lowest temperature continued to decrease during the dispersion to the bottom and then recover to the environment temperature gradually. The droplet velocity dropped rapidly as soon as entering into the atmosphere and followed the wind finally. It could be seen that wind field helped evaporation because the droplet diameter decreased if the wind velocity rose. The research of this paper can provide guidance for consequence and risk assessment for such accidents.
About author: 刘玉金（1986-），男，江西赣州人，硕士研究生，研究方向为化工过程设备安全评价。
Cite this article:
LIU Yu-Jin, TAN Wei, LIU Li-Yan, SU Yan-Xia.Simulation on Instantaneous Release Diffusion of LPG under Wind Field[J] Chemcial Industry and Engineering, 2012,V29(6): 36-41
2012, Vol. 29 
