Design of a computer tool for the evaluation of the consequences of accidental natural gas releases in distribution pipes

A computer system was designed to model releases of a gas to the atmosphere. This paper describes the mathematical models used to describe the phenomenon: source term (which can be applied to gases with an ideal behaviour), turbulent jet, jet fire (including thermal radiation vulnerability models) and atmospheric dispersion (both for light and neutral gases), as well as the software and hardware used in the system.