A quantitative model to assess the human consequences of a natural gas pipeline rupture in urban distribution networks

Abstract

Natural gas is known as a hazardous fuel that could cause human casualties, especially in urban areas. For this reason, assessing the consequences of natural gas pipeline ruptures is settled as an important element in determining the potential effects of such ruptures on human health and developing risk management programs for natural gas networks. Several efforts have been made in the literature to establish potential consequence areas; however, there are many limitations on the methodologies proposed so far; or alternatively, consequence analyses have been performed in specific cases using a defined location, but not along a natural gas distribution network. The model proposed in this research consists of two main components: (i) a spatial assessment of gas dispersion through the ALOHA software to obtain the potential impact areas, and (ii), the count of the number of individual people located within the potential impact areas through a geographic information system (GIS) model, which proves to be a valuable tool for assessing the consequences of natural gas distribution networks. The proposed model has been applied on a case study to validate the ability to quantify the number of people exposed per linear meter of pipeline, and provide the opportunity to relatively assess the level of consequences of the pipeline network.