A numerical study of effects of an industrial hazardous release on people egress

The release and dispersion of toxic materials from industrial equipment may pose severe concerns and have tragic consequences. The assessment of such scenarios relies on broad literature, approaches, and modelling tools that support estimating the impact area. However, hazard assessments do not generally embed the egress modelling and the impact of a toxic release on people evacuating. The present work couples a gas dispersion model with evacuation dynamics to estimate the near-field impact on people approaching a safe place. It is applied to a hypothetical case study concerning a release of dense chlorine, in which the effect of adopting different assumptions is discussed.