5. Conclusion

The METEOR method has been developed and implemented in a tool for assessing the maximum overpressure in the explosive cloud of a UVCE. Its aim is to help set a severity index when using the Multi-Energy method, and to provide consistent, unambiguous results from one case study to another.

METEOR fills a need for a robust, easy-to-use method that can be used to justify the severity indices used in the Multi-Energy method. METEOR is an expert system combining correlations and expert cognitive approaches (steps guiding the engineer to estimate congestion via congestion categories or reference congestion cases, etc.) which take into account the main parameters influencing the explosion.

The verification and validation tests carried out show that consistent results are obtained in relation to the explosion cases and experimental tests identified....