Specialist Scientific Facilities - Gas Dispersion Facility

This facility, which extends over an area of about 8.5ha of flat grassland on HSL's Buxton site, provides an excellent site for studying releases of pressure liquefied gases and liquids. It is being used to characterise unignited releases, including rain-out, to examine the combustion processes involved in pool and vapour cloud fires and to determine the protection afforded from flash fires by buildings.

Features
• 600 litre sunken vessel for the storage and release of pressurised gases, e.g. carbon dioxide, and two 1.5 tonne LPG tanks for the release of propane. Each tank and the associated pipework is fully instrumented to characterise the conditions in the tank and at the release point.
• On site laboratory/office building and storage buildings with mains electricity and water.
• Large field which can be instrumented for concentration, heat flux and temperature measurements in order to characterise the dispersion of unignited and ignited vapour clouds.
• Mobile mast with equipment capable of monitoring atmospheric conditions including atmospheric stability.
• Availability of meteorological data over a number of years provides essential background information for gas dispersion studies.

Applications
• Two-phase jet dispersion.
• Burning characteristics of flammable vapour cloud fires.
• Assessing release characteristics of gas dispersion test rigs.
• Determining the amount of rainout on release of pressure liquefied gases.

This facility is available to public and private sector customers from the UK and overseas and is complemented by the analytical and interpretative skills of HSL's experienced scientific and technical staff.

Further Details
Contact our Business Development Group by telephone (+44) 01298 218218, fax (+44) 01298 218822 or email hslinfo@hsl.gov.uk.

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