Source strength and dispersion of CO2 releases from high-pressure pipelines: CFD model using real gas equation of state

• Validated CFD models for decompression and dispersion of CO2 releases from pipelines.
• Incorporation of real gas EOS into CFD code for source strength estimation.
• Demonstration of better performance of SST k–ω turbulence model for jet flow.
• Demonstration of better performance of real gas EOS compared to ideal gas EOS.
• Demonstration of superiority of CFD models over a commercial risk assessment package.

Transportation of CO2 in high-pressure pipelines forms a crucial link in the ever-increasing application of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies. An unplanned release of CO2 from a pipeline presents a risk to human and animal populations and the environment. Therefore it is very important to develop a deeper understanding of the atmospheric dispersion of CO2 before the deployment of CO2 pipelines, to allow the appropriate safety precautions to be taken. This paper presents a two-stage Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) study developed (1) to estimate the source strength, and (2) to simulate the subsequent dispersion of CO2 in the atmosphere, using the source strength estimated in stage (1). The Peng–Robinson (PR) EOS was incorporated into the CFD code. This enabled accurate modelling of the CO2 jet to achieve more precise source strength estimates. The two-stage simulation approach also resulted in a reduction in the overall computing time. The CFD models were validated against experimental results from the British Petroleum (BP) CO2 dispersion trials, and also against results produced by the risk management package Phast. Compared with the measurements, the CFD simulation results showed good agreement in both source strength and dispersion profile predictions. Furthermore, the effect of release direction on the dispersion was studied. The presented research provides a viable method for the assessment of risks associated with CCS.