Understanding the transport and fate of hazardous liquids release plumes in a terrestrial setting is a daunting task. Realistic simulation of such release plumes is mathematically complex and computationally intensive. Some currently available liquids HCA software packages are inaccurate, unscalable, or both. G2-IS’ Liquids HCA Tool increases accuracy via advanced Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) algorithms, and takes advantage of modern virtualized, containerized computing for massive scalability. The Liquids HCA Tool gives you the power to rapidly and efficiently determine regulatory “could affect” segments in a way that is consistent, reliable, reproducible, and defendable.
Liquids HCA Tool
If you have a liquids release, where will it go and what will it affect?
Easy-to-use, powerful simulation tool
The liquids pipeline integrity management rule requires that you identify all pipeline segments that ``could affect a high consequence area,`` including populated areas, unusually sensitive ecological and drinking water resources, and commercially navigable waterways. To do this, you must model the transport of a release plume both overland and in waterways with high fidelity.
The Liquids HCA Tool is powered by GeoClaw, an advanced CFD toolset that implements high resolution, adaptive finite volume methods for the shallow water equations, modified to model hydrocarbon flows. The tool connects directly to USGS web services to obtain topographic and hydrologic data and utilizes Docker® and Microsoft Azure® for unlimited scalability. The tool works directly inside ArcGIS Pro, providing increased flexibility over stand-alone applications. It is data model independent and works with unstructured data sources, as well as all popular pipeline data models.
The Liquids HCA Tool is powered by GeoClaw, an advanced CFD toolset that implements high resolution, adaptive finite volume methods for the shallow water equations, modified to model hydrocarbon flows. The tool connects directly to USGS web services to obtain topographic and hydrologic data and utilizes Docker® and Microsoft Azure® for unlimited scalability. The tool works directly inside ArcGIS Pro, providing increased flexibility over stand-alone applications. It is data model independent and works with unstructured data sources, as well as all popular pipeline data models.
End-to-end Liquids HCA services
G2-IS can provide end-to-end liquids HCA services, helping to collect and update all the information required for the analysis. The elements of the service can be customized to your needs, including:
- Collection of fluid properties and determination of appropriate modeling parameters
- Confirmation (or elimination) of existing HCAs and identification of additional HCAs
- Creation of Liquids HCA results alignment sheets, reports, and supporting process documents
- Performance of Emergency Flow Restriction Device (EFRD) placement analysis
- Vapor Cloud Dispersion (VCD) analysis using CANARY
- Preparation of detailed, dynamically segmented consequence results for use in risk modeling
- Provision of the Liquids HCA Tool as a cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution
- Performance of Liquids HCA “could affect” segment delineation as a service
Key features:
- Cutting edge CFD algorithm for overland flow
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- Based on GeoClaw, a finite volume method solver for the 2D Shallow Water equations, enhanced for use with hydrocarbons (and other) fluids
- Employs the Gudonov method with Riemann solvers
- Provides Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR) in both space and time
- Is highly scalable and designed for deployment in Microsoft Azure
- Based on GeoClaw, a finite volume method solver for the 2D Shallow Water equations, enhanced for use with hydrocarbons (and other) fluids
- Drain down analysis includes network topology for contributions from connected lines, identified sites, gathering places, and structure locations
- Comprehensive hydrographic transport water velocity analysis
- Utilizes statistical analysis of embedded NHD High Resolution stream velocity data to determine reasonable worst-case stream velocities
- Modeling of hydrographic transport into and through waterbodies
- Flow through or terminate in water bodies based on analytic criteria
- Product fate and fluid loss calculations
- Evaporation (liquids and HVLs)
- Infiltration
- Adhesion
- Shoreline and slick losses
- Comprehensive results dataset generated for integrity management planning
- Independent land and water emergency response times
Benefits:
- Results are consistent, reproducible, and defendable
- Far more efficient than time consuming, costly manual analyses
- Greatly reduced cycle time, facilitating what-if analysis on the fly
- All results are stored in a structured Esri geodatabase
- Provides an extremely granular understanding of consequence for risk analysis
Who benefits:
- Pipeline Integrity Engineers: accurately assessing and documenting “could affect” segments and impacts to HCAs
- GIS Managers: providing efficient tools and data for “could affect” segment determination to integrity and operations teams
- Integrity Managers/Directors: visualizing risks and planning remediation with valuable spatial insights about the environment and the community
- Compliance Engineers: prioritizing work procedures for assessments, repairs, and additional integrity-related activities and ensuring compliance with regulations
- Executives: using reports for reviewing the financial impacts of pipelines with the highest consequence “could affect” segments
Pipeline Software developed by pipeliners!
Our team has extensive experience in pipeline industry data models, regulatory requirements, and operations. Talk with G2-IS experts and let us help you unlock the value of your existing platforms!