Cambridge Environmental Research Consultants (CERC) software

GASTAR is a dense gas dispersion model developed by CERC ideally suited to modelling accident and emergency response scenarios or investigating site safety involving releases of flammable and/or toxic materials from a variety of industrial accidents such as cryogenic spills, catastrophic tank failure, pipe fractures and multi-phase jets.

LSMS (Liquid Spill Modelling System) is a tool for calculating the spreading and vaporisation of a liquid pool. Liquids such as liquefied natural gas (LNG), liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and others are routinely stored at low temperatures and on their release to the atmosphere they boil or evaporate depending on their temperature relative to the ambient air. Such liquids flow across the ground or other substrate surrounding the containing vessel, extracting heat from the underlying surface which provides the energy to drive the vaporisation. As the liquid spreads, the size of the liquid pool changes and the vaporisation rate alters accordingly and such information is essential for calculating the subsequent dispersion of the cold vapour. In many circumstances the containing vessel is surrounded by some mitigating measure such as the presence of a bund and the flow of the liquid and its interaction with the bund wall presents a formidable prediction problem.

ADMS-Puff uses a Lagrangian puff methodology to model the fate of dense and passive gas releases. ADMS-Puff can use temporally and spatially varying meteorological data from the WRF model, or simple surface data. ADMS-Puff can also account for the impact of complex terrain: hills and variable surface roughness. ADMS-Puff calculates snapshots of instantaneous air concentration along with a time integrated dose. These concentrations can be compared against regulatory or other levels, including inbuilt flammability limits. ADMS-Puff has a link to Golden Software’s Surfer package for displaying contours of concentration overlaid on a map of the area where the incident occurred.

ADMS-STAR uses a Lagrangian puff methodology to model the fate of explosive or finite duration releases to atmosphere. ADMS-STAR can use temporally and spatially varying meteorological data from the WRF model, vertical profiles of meteorological data or simple surface data. ADMS-STAR can also account for the impact of complex terrain: hills, variable surface roughness; and marine effects. ADMS-STAR calculates instantaneous air concentration and accumulated wet and dry deposition for radiological or chemical emissions. These can be compared against regulatory or other levels (e.g. EU maximum permitted levels in foodstuffs).