| Atmospheric plume dispersion models are used for a variety of purposes including emergency planning and response to hazardous material releases, determining force protection actions in the event of a WMD attack and for locating sources of pollution. This paper provides a review of previous studies that examine the accuracy of atmospheric plume dispersion models for chemical releases. It considers the principles used to derive air dispersion plume models and looks at three specific models currently in use; ALOHA, EPIcode and SCIPUFF. Results from this study indicate over-prediction bias by the EPIcode and SCIPUFF models and under-prediction bias by the ALOHA model. The experiment parameters were for near field dispersion, (less than 100 meters), in low wind speed conditions, (less than 2 meters per second). |
