Proceedings of the
35th European Safety and Reliability Conference (ESREL2025) and
the 33rd Society for Risk Analysis Europe Conference (SRA-E 2025)
15 – 19 June 2025, Stavanger, Norway
Simulation and Risk Assessment of CO2 Buried Pipeline Leakage and Diffusion Using PHAST
1College of Mechanical and Transportation Engineering, China University of Petroleum, Beijing, China.
2Engineering Institute, China University of Petroleum, Karamay, China.
3Autonomous Region Tianshan Innovation Team for Research and Application of High-Efficiency Oil and Gas Pipeline Technology, Xinjiang, China
ABSTRACT
Carbon dioxide pipeline leaks can pose significant threats to human health and environmental safety. This study utilized PHAST software to simulate far-field CO2 dispersion, validated against experimental results. Key factors analysed include leakage characteristics (direction and size), pipeline parameters (operating pressure and fluid temperature), and environmental conditions (wind speed, atmospheric stability, and ambient temperature), with thresholds of 0.5% and 5.0% CO2 volume as safety and lethal limits, respectively. Results show middle perforations cause wider horizontal dispersion near the ground, while high-consequence areas (HCAs) expand with increasing operating pressure, leak size, and ambient temperature, but decrease with higher wind speed and atmospheric stability. Leakage size was identified as the most critical factor, with HCAs growing exponentially with size. This study provides a scientific basis for CO2 leakage risk assessment and offers guidance to enhance pipeline safety in CCUS systems.
Keywords: CO2 Buried pipeline, Small hole leakage, Diffusion concentration, High-Consequence Areas (HCAs) PHAST.
