Flow and dispersion around storage tanks. A comparison between numerical and wind tunnel simulations

Accidental gaseous losses from industrial processes can pose considerable health andrnenvironmental risks but assessing their health, safety and environmental impact is problematic. Improvedrnunderstanding and simulation of the dispersion of emissions in the vicinity of storage tanks is required.rnThe present study aims to assess the capability of the turbulence closures and meshing alternatives in arncommercially available CFD code for predicting dispersion in the vicinity of cubes and circular cylindricalrnstorage tanks. The performance of the k- e and Reynolds Stress turbulence models and meshing alternativesrnfor these cases are compared to experimental data. The CFD simulations are very good qualitatively and,rnin many cases, quantitatively. A mesh with prismatic elements is more accurate than a tetrahedral mesh.rnOverall the Reynolds stress model performs slightly better than the k- e model.