Development and application of a random walk model of atmospheric diffusion in the emergency response of nuclear accidents

Abstract

Plume concentration prediction is one of the main contents of radioactive consequence assessment for early emergency response to nuclear accidents. Random characteristics of atmospheric diffusion itself was described, a random walk model of atmospheric diffusion (Random Walk) was introduced and compared with the Lagrangian puff model (RIMPUFF) in the nuclear emergency decision support system (RODOS) developed by the European Community for verification. The results show the concentrations calculated by the two models are quite close except that the plume area calculated by Random Walk is a little smaller than that by RIMPUFF. The random walk model for atmospheric diffusion can simulate the atmospheric diffusion in case of nuclear accidents, and provide more actual information for early emergency and consequence assessment as one of the atmospheric diffusion module of the nuclear emergency decision support system.