Models for assessing the spread of flammable liquid spills and their burning

An understanding of the manner in which different types of flammable liquids get spread over different types of surfaces when accidentally spilled, is crucial for preventing escalation of accidents involving such spills. Enormous quantities of flammable liquids-of which petrol, diesel, kerosene, liquid petroleum gas (LPG), and compressed natural gas (CNG) are among the most common-are manufactured, refilled, stored, transported, and utilized round the clock all over the world. This makes the risk of accidental spill of such chemicals alive all the time. The enormity of this risk can be gauged from the fact that majority of industrial disasters, which have killed or injured scores of people and caused loss of property worth hundreds of billions of US dollars, have started with a mere spill. In very many cases spills have triggered larger fires and explosions whereby the initial accidents escalated into horrific disasters. This paper presents an state-of-art survey of the models developed so far on forecasting the spill dynamics of flammable liquids and the heat generated if they catch fire.