Effects of congestion and confining walls on turbulent deflagrations in a hydrogen storage facility-part 2 : numerical study

Abstract If the general public is to use hydrogen as a vehicle fuel, customers must be able to handle hydrogen with the same degree of confidence, and with comparable risk, as conventional liquid and gaseous fuels. Since hydrogen is stored and used as a high-pressure gas, a jet release in a confined or congested area can create an explosion hazard. Therefore, hazards associated with jet releases from leaks in a vehicle-refuelling environment must be considered. As there was insufficient knowledge of the explosion hazards, a study was initiated to gain a better understanding of the potential explosion hazard consequences associated with high-pressure leaks from hydrogen vehicle refuelling systems. Our first paper [1] describes the release and subsequent ignition of a high-pressure hydrogen jet in a simulated dispensing area of a hydrogen vehicle refuelling station. In the present paper, an array of dummy storage cylinders with confining walls (to represent isolation from the forecourt area) was used to represent high-pressure hydrogen cylinder storage congestion. Experiments with ignition of premixed 5.4 m × 6.0 m × 2.5 m hydrogen-air clouds and hydrogen jet releases up to 40 MPa pressures were performed. The results are presented and discussed in relation to the conditions giving the highest overpressures. We concluded from the study that the ignition of a jet release gives much higher local overpressure than in the case of ignition of a homogeneous mixture inside the cylinder storage congestion area. The modelling of these results will be presented in Part 2 of this paper.