GASFLOW-MPI: A new 3-D parallel all-speed CFD code for turbulent dispersion and combustion simulations Part II: First analysis of the hydrogen explosion in Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1

The core-melt in Fukushima-Daiichi Unit 1 represents a new class of severe accidents in which combustible gas from core degradation leaked from the containment into the surrounding air-filled reactor building, formed there a highly reactive gas mixture, and exploded 25 h after begin of the station black-out. Since TMI-2 hydrogen safety research and management has focussed on processes and counter-measures inside the containment but the reactor building remained unprotected against hydrogen threats. The code GASFLOW-MPI is currently under development to simulate hydrogen behaviors, including distribution and combustion, for scenarios with containment leakage.This paper describes a first analysis of the hydrogen explosion in Unit 1. It investigates gas dispersion in the reactor building, assuming a leak at the drywell head flange, shows the evolution of a stratified, inhomogeneous H₂–O₂–N₂–steam mixture in the refueling bay, simulates the combustion of the reactive gas mixture, and predicts pressure loads to walls and internal structures of the reactor building. The blast wave propagated essentially sideways, which explains why all side walls were blown out and the ceiling just collapsed onto the floor of the refueling bay. The blast wave propagation into the free environment was also simulated. The over-pressure amplitudes are sufficiently high to cause damage to adjacent buildings and to injure people. The hitherto existing presumption that the blow-out panel of Unit 2 was removed by the Unit 1 explosion can be confirmed which likely prevented a hydrogen explosion in the Unit 2.GASFLOW-MPI provides validated models for the integral simulations of leakage related core-melt scenarios. Furthermore, the code contains extensively tested submodels for catalytic recombiners, igniters and burst foils, which allow design of new hydrogen risk mitigation systems for currently unprotected spaces in reactor buildings.     

Hydrogen dispersion in a closed environment

The highly combustible nature of hydrogen poses a great hazard, creating a number of problems with its safety and handling. As a part of safety studies related to the use of hydrogen in a confined environment, it is extremely important to have a good knowledge of the dispersion mechanism.The present work investigates the concentration field and flammability envelope from a small scale leak. The hydrogen is released into a 0.47 m × 0.33 m x 0.20 m enclosure designed as a 1/15 – scale model of a room in a nuclear facility. The performed tests evaluates the influence of the initial conditions at the leakage source on the dispersion and mixing characteristics in a confined environment. The role of the leak location and the presence of obstacles, are also analyzed. Throughout the test, during the release and the subsequent dispersion phase, temporal profiles of hydrogen concentration are measured using thermal conductivity gauges within the enclosure. In addition, the BOS (Background Oriented Schlieren) technique is used to visualise the cloud evolution inside the enclosure. These instruments allow the observation and quantification of the stratification effects.     

Hydrogen dispersion phenomenon in nominally closed spaces

The hydrogen dispersion phenomenon in an enclosure depends on the ratio of the gas buoyancy-induced momentum and diffusive motions. Random diffusive motions of individual gas particles become dominative when the release momentum is low, and a uniform hydrogen concentration appears in the enclosure instead of the gas cumulation below the ceiling. The expected hydrogen behavior could be projected by the Froude number, which value ~1 predicts a decline of buoyancy. This paper justifies this hypothesis by demonstrating full-scale experimental results of hydrogen dispersion within a confined space under six different release variations. During the experiments, hydrogen was released into the test room of 60 m³ volume in two methods: through a nozzle and through 21 points evenly distributed on the emission box cover (multi-point release). Each release method was tested with three volume flow rates (3.2 × 10⁻³ m³/s, 1.6 × 10⁻³ m³/s, 3.3 × 10⁻⁴ m³/s). The tests confirm the decrease of hydrogen buoyancy and its stratification tendencies when the Mach, Reynolds, and Froud number values decrease. Because the hydrogen dispersion phenomenon would impact fire and explosive hazards, the presented experimental results could help fire protection systems be in an enclosure designed, allowing their effectiveness optimization.     

Experimental and numerical investigations of hydrogen jet fire in a vented compartment

Hydrogen fires may pose serious safety issues in vented compartments of nuclear reactor containment and fuel cell systems under hypothetical accidents. Experimental studies on vented hydrogen fires have been performed with the HYKA test facility at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) within Work Package 4 (WP4) - hydrogen jet fire in a confined space of the European HyIndoor project. It has been observed that heat losses of the combustion products can significantly affect the combustion regimes of hydrogen fire as well as the pressure and thermal loads on the confinement structures. Dynamics of turbulent hydrogen jet fire in a vented enclosure was investigated using the CFD code GASFLOW-MPI. Effects of heat losses, including convective heat transfer, steam condensation and thermal radiation, have been studied. The unsteady characteristics of hydrogen jet fires can be successfully captured when the heat transfer mechanisms are considered. Both initial pressure peak and pressure decay were very well predicted compared to the experimental data. A pulsating process of flame extinction due to the consumption of oxygen and then self-ignition due to the inflow of fresh air was captured as well. However, in the adiabatic case without considering the heat loss effects, the pressure and temperature were considerably over-predicted and the major physical phenomena occurring in the combustion enclosure were not able to be reproduced while showing large discrepancies from the experimental observations. The effect of sustained hydrogen release on the jet fire dynamics was also investigated. It indicates that heat losses can have important implications and should be considered in hydrogen combustion simulations.     

Simulation of the efficiency of hydrogen recombiners as safety devices

Passive auto-catalytic recombiners (PARs) may be used in the future as safety devices inside confined areas for the removal of accidentally released hydrogen. In the presented study, it was investigated whether a PAR designed for hydrogen removal inside an NPP containment would principally work inside a typical surrounding of hydrogen or fuel cell applications. For this purpose, a hydrogen release scenario inside a garage – based on experiments performed by CEA in the GARAGE facility (France) – has been simulated with and without PAR installation. For modeling the operational behavior of the PAR, the in-house code REKO-DIREKT was implemented in the CFD code ANSYS-CFX. The study was performed in three steps: First, a helium release scenario was simulated and validated against experimental data. Second, helium was replaced by hydrogen in the simulation. This step served as a reference case for the unmitigated scenario. Finally, the numerical garage setup was enhanced with a commercial PAR model. The study shows that the PAR works efficiently by removing hydrogen and promoting mixing inside the garage. The hot exhaust plume promotes the formation of a thermal stratification that pushes the initial hydrogen rich gas downwards and in direction of the PAR inlet. The paper describes the code implementation and simulation results.     

Numerical analysis of hydrogen release,dispersion and combustion in a tunnel with fuel cell vehicles using all-speed CFD code GASFLOW-MPI

Hydrogen energy is expanding world-widely in recent years, while hydrogen safety issues have drawn considerable attention. It is widely accepted that accidental hydrogen release in an open-air environment will disperse quickly, hence not causing significant hydrogen hazards. A hydrogen hazard is more likely to occur when hydrogen is accidentally released in a confined place, i.e. parking garages and tunnels. Prediction the main accident process, including the hydrogen release, dispersion, and combustion, is important for hydrogen safety assessment, and ensuring the safety installations during accidents. Hence, a postulated accident scenario induced by the operation of Thermal Pressure Relief Device in a tunnel is analysed for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles with GASFLOW-MPI in this study. GASFLOW-MPI is a well validated parallel CFD code focusing on the transport, combustion, and detonation of hydrogen. It solves compressible Navier-Stokes equations with a powerful all-speed Arbitrary-Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) method; hence can cover both the non-compressible flow during the hydrogen release and dispersion phases, and the compressible flow during deflagration and detonation. In this study, a 3D model of real-scaled tunnel is modelled, firstly. Then the hydrogen dispersion in the tunnel is calculated to evaluate the risk of Flame acceleration and the Deflagration-Detonation Transient (DDT). The case with jet fire is analysed with assuming that the hydrogen is ignited right after being injected forming a jet fire in the tunnel, the consequence of this case is limited considering the small hydrogen inventory. The detonation in the tunnel is calculated by assuming a strong ignition at the top of the tunnel at an unfavourable time and location. The pressure loads are calculated to evaluate the consequence of the hazard. The analysis shows that the GASFLOW-MPI is applicable at a widely range for tunnel accidents, meanwhile, the safety issues related to tunnel accidents is worthy further study considering the complexity of tunnels.     

Numerical modelling of isothermal release and distribution of helium and hydrogen gases inside the AIHMS cylindrical enclosure

Hydrogen is a highly flammable gas and accidental release in confined space can pose serious combustion hazards. Numerical studies are required to assess the formation of flammable hydrogen cloud within confined spaces. In the present study, numerical investigations on the release of helium and hydrogen gases as high-velocity jets and their subsequent distribution inside an unventilated cylindrical enclosure (AIHMS facility) has been carried out as a first step towards numerical studies on hydrogen distribution in confined spaces for safety assessments. Experimental data for jet release of helium at volume Richardson number 0.1 and subsequent distribution has been used as benchmark data. Sensitivity studies on the influence of grid sizes, time-steps and turbulence models are performed. The performance of the validated numerical model is evaluated using statistical performance parameters. Similarity relations are used to determine input parameters for hydrogen jet for corresponding experimental data with helium jets. Finally, the mixing and flammability aspects of hydrogen distribution inside the enclosure are studied using four numerical indices that quantify mixing and deflagration potential of a distribution. It is concluded that the helium experiments can be used for validation of numerical models for hydrogen safety studies and any one of the similarity relationships, viz., equal buoyancy, equal volumetric flow, or equal concentration can be used for assessing the behaviour of hydrogen release and distribution within confined spaces.     

Measurements of effective diffusion coefficients of helium and hydrogen through gypsum

An experimental apparatus, which was based on the ¼-scale garage previously used for studying helium release and dispersion in our laboratory, was used to obtain effective diffusion coefficients of helium and hydrogen (released as forming gas for safety reasons) through gypsum panel. Two types of gypsum panel were used in the experiments. Helium or forming gas was released into the enclosure from a Fischer burner¹ located near the enclosure floor for a fixed duration and then terminated. Eight thermal-conductivity sensors mounted at different vertical locations above the enclosure floor were used to monitor the temporal and spatial gas concentrations. An electric fan was used inside the enclosure to mix the released gas to ensure a spatially uniform gas concentration to minimize stratification. The temporal variations of the pressure difference between the enclosure interior and the ambience were also measured. An analytical model was developed to extract the effective diffusion coefficients from the experimental data.     

Math hydrogen catalytic recombiner: Engineering model for dynamic full-scale calculations

To protect a hermetic enclosure and the equipment and systems of a reactor installation housed in it from damage caused by the ignition (explosion) of hydrogen, most nuclear power plants with pressurized water reactors are provided with a hydrogen concentration monitoring system and an emergency hydrogen removal system. These systems prevent the formation of explosive mixtures in the accident localization zone by maintaining the concentration volume of hydrogen in the mixture below the safety limits, which ensures the preservation of the density and strength of the hermetic enclosure and the operability of other localizing safety systems. A key component of an emergency hydrogen removal system is a passive autocatalytic hydrogen recombiner that operates on the principle of the catalytic recombination of hydrogen and oxygen.There is an urgent need for a full-scale dynamic calculation of the development of emergency conditions in a nuclear power plant containment accompanied by a large release of hydrogen. In efforts to achieve this, we constructed, and justified, a simple engineering thermohydraulic model of hydrogen removal in the operation of a passive autocatalytic recombiner based on the available experimental data.This paper presents the application results of the model as a part of contour industry codes RELAP, TRACE and CORSAR, intended, among other things, for carrying out multifactor and full-scale calculations of the dynamics of emergency processes with the release of hydrogen into nuclear power plant premises. This model allows us to substantiate the dynamics of local concentrations of gas components of a mixture in a confined space; the temperature of the mixture, the catalyst and the walls of the box; and the pressure when hydrogen or steam is supplied to the box.We have analysed various rates of hydrogen supply to a closed box to numerically substantiate the time at which the concentration reaches the maximum level. Furthermore, we have calculated the performance for several entrance concentrations of hydrogen, and obtained a satisfactory agreement between the dynamics of the concentrations, the temperatures of the catalyst and gas, and the productivity of the passive autocatalytic hydrogen recombiner. These calculations are based on the results of comparisons between calculated and available experimental data.     

Hydrogen jet fires in a passively ventilated enclosure

This paper describes a combined experimental, analytical and numerical modelling investigation into hydrogen jet fires in a passively ventilated enclosure. The work was funded by the EU Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking project Hyindoor. It is relevant to situations where hydrogen is stored or used indoors. In such situations passive ventilation can be used to prevent the formation of a flammable atmosphere following a release of hydrogen. Whilst a significant amount of work has been reported on unignited releases in passively ventilated enclosures and on outdoor hydrogen jet fires, very little is known about the behaviour of hydrogen jet fires in passively ventilated enclosures. This paper considers the effects of passive ventilation openings on the behaviour of hydrogen jet fires. A series of hydrogen jet fire experiments were carried out using a 31 m³ passively ventilated enclosure. The test programme included subsonic and chocked flow releases with varying hydrogen release rates and vent configurations. In most of the tests the hydrogen release rate was sufficiently low and the vent area sufficiently large to lead to a well-ventilated jet fire. In a limited number of tests the vent area was reduced, allowing under-ventilated conditions to be investigated. The behaviour of a jet fire in a passively ventilated enclosure depends on the hydrogen release rate, the vent area and the thermal properties of the enclosure. An analytical model was used to quantify the relative importance of the hydrogen release rate and vent area, whilst the influence of the thermal properties of the enclosure were investigated using a CFD model. Overall, the results indicate that passive ventilation openings that are sufficiently large to safely ventilate an unignited release will tend to be large enough to prevent a jet fire from becoming under-ventilated.     

Experimental and numerical characterization of hydrogen jet fires

Compressed hydrogen gas is considered the most convenient and robust technological solution for long-term storage. However, several safety concerns are still under investigation. This work presents an experimental and numerical characterization of the jet flame produced after the accidental release from a high-pressure tank containing pure hydrogen at pressures ranging from 90 to 450 bar and release diameters ranging from 1 to 5 mm. Results are expressed in terms of temperature history and flame length. The complete set of measurements has been reported in the supplementary materials. Both integral and discrete models were employed. Besides, the computational fluid dynamic was integrated with finite reaction rate and accurate thermodynamic properties (from the ab initio approach) and showed excellent agreement with experimental data.     

Vented confined explosions involving methane/hydrogen mixtures

The EC funded Naturalhy project is assessing the potential for using the existing gas infrastructure for conveying hydrogen as a mixture with natural gas (methane). The hydrogen could then be removed at a point of use or the natural gas/hydrogen mixture could be burned in gas-fired appliances thereby providing reduced carbon emissions compared to natural gas. As part of the project, the impact on the safety of the gas system resulting from the addition of hydrogen is being assessed. A release of a natural gas/hydrogen mixture within a vented enclosure (such as an industrial housing of plant and equipment) could result in a flammable mixture being formed and ignited. Due to the different properties of hydrogen, the resulting explosion may be more severe for natural gas/hydrogen mixtures compared to natural gas. Therefore, a series of large scale explosion experiments involving methane/hydrogen mixtures has been conducted in a 69.3 m³ enclosure in order to assess the effect of different hydrogen concentrations on the resulting explosion overpressures. The results showed that adding up to 20% by volume of hydrogen to the methane resulted in a small increase in explosion flame speeds and overpressures. However, a significant increase was observed when 50% hydrogen was added. For the vented confined explosions studied, it was also observed that the addition of obstacles within the enclosure, representing congestion caused by equipment and pipework, etc., increased flame speeds and overpressures above the levels measured in an empty enclosure. Predictions of the explosion overpressure and flame speed were also made using a modified version of the Shell Global Solutions model, SCOPE. The modifications included changes to the burning velocity and other physical properties of methane/hydrogen mixtures. Comparisons with the experimental data showed generally good agreement.     

Pressure peaking phenomenon: Model validation against unignited release and jet fire experiments

The aim of this study is validation of pressure peaking phenomenon models for unignited and ignited releases of hydrogen in enclosures with limited ventilation, e.g. residential garages. The existence of “unexpected” peak in the pressure transient during release of a lighter than air gas in a vented enclosure was observed by Brennan et al. (2010) by carrying out theoretical and numerical research. The amplitude and duration of this pressure peak vary depending on the enclosure volume, vent size and leak flow rate. The peak can significantly exceed the steady-state overpressure, which is reached when the enclosure is fully occupied by leaking with a constant rate gas. The pressure peaking phenomenon can jeopardise a civil structure integrity in the case of accident if it is ignored at the design stage of hydrogen-powered vehicles. This could cause serious life safety and property protection issues that requires development of prevention and mitigation strategies and innovative safety engineering solutions. The experimental validation of the phenomenon was absent up to this work. The previous model for unignited release and developed in this study model for ignited release (jet fire) have been validated against experiments performed in a vented enclosure of 1 m³ volume with three different gases: air, helium, and hydrogen. The model for unignited release reproduces closely the experimental pressure peak and the pressure dynamics within the enclosure. The model for ignited release reproduces the pressure peak with acceptable engineering accuracy, and the simulation of pressure dynamics after the peak requires the increase of the discharge coefficient due to the change of vent flow from heavier air at the start to lighter hot combustion products afterwards and ultimately hydrogen. The methodology to calculate the pressure peaking phenomenon in two steps is described in detail. Examples of pressure peaking phenomenon calculation for typical hydrogen applications are presented. The phenomenon is relevant to most of indoor applications, when release of lighter than air gas is possible in an enclosure with limited ventilation. It must be considered when performing safety engineering design of inherently safer hydrogen systems and infrastructure.     

Numerical and physical requirements to simulation of gas release and dispersion in an enclosure with one vent

Numerical and physical requirements to simulations of sub-sonic release and dispersion of light gas in an enclosure with one vent are described and discussed. Six validation experiments performed at CEA in a fuel cell-like enclosure of sizes H × W × L = 126 × 93 × 93 cm with one vent, either W × H = 90 × 18 cm (vent A) or 18 × 18 cm (B) or 1 cm in diameter (C), with a vertical upward helium release from a pipe of internal diameter either 5 mm or 20 mm located 21 cm above the floor centre, were used in a parametric study comprising 17 numerical simulations. Three CFD models were applied, i.e. laminar, standard k-?, and dynamic LES Smagorinsky–Lilly, to clarify a range of their applicability and performance. The LES model consistently demonstrated the best performance in reproduction of measured concentrations throughout the whole range of experimental conditions, including laminar, transitional and turbulent releases even with large CFL numbers. The laminar and the standard k-? models were under performing in the reproduction of turbulent and laminar releases respectively, as expected, as well as in simulation of transitional flows. The laminar model demonstrated high sensitivity to the CFL (Courant–Friedrichs–Lewy) number even below the best practices limit of 40. Three different computational domains and grids were used in order to clarify the influence of mesh quality on the capability of simulations to reproduce the experimental data. It is concluded that physically substantiated choice of CFD model, the control of the CFL number (and released gas mass balance where appropriate), and the mesh quality can have a strong effect on the capability of simulations to reproduce experiments and, in general, on the reliability of CFD tools for application in hydrogen safety engineering.     

Hydrogen non-premixed combustion in enclosure with one vent and sustained release: Numerical experiments

Numerical experiments are performed to understand different regimes of hydrogen non-premixed combustion in an enclosure with passive ventilation through one horizontal or vertical vent located at the top of a wall. The Reynolds averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model with a reduced chemical reaction mechanism is described in detail. The model is based on the renormalization group (RNG) k-ε turbulence model, the eddy dissipation concept (EDC) model for simulation of combustion coupled with the 18-step reduced chemical mechanism (8 species), and the in-situ adaptive tabulation (ISAT) algorithm that accelerates the reacting flow calculations by two to three orders of magnitude. The analysis of temperature and species (hydroxyl, hydrogen, oxygen, water) concentrations in time, as well as the velocity through the vent, shed a light on regimes and dynamics of indoor hydrogen fires. A well-ventilated fire is simulated in the enclosure at a lower release flow rate and complete combustion of hydrogen within the enclosure. Fire becomes under-ventilated at higher release flow rates with two different modes observed. The first mode is the external flame stabilised at the enclosure vent at moderate release rates, and the second mode is the self-extinction of combustion inside and outside the enclosure at higher hydrogen release rates. The simulations demonstrated a complex reacting flow dynamics in the enclosure that leads to formation of the external flame or the self-extinction. The air intake into the enclosure at later stages of the process through the whole vent area is a characteristic feature of the self-extinction regime. This air intake is due to faster cooling of hot combustion products by sustained colder hydrogen leak compared to the generation of hot products by the ceasing chemical reactions inside the enclosure and hydrogen supply. In general, an increase of hydrogen sustained release flow rate will change fire regime from the well-ventilated combustion within the enclosure, through the external flame stabilised at the vent, and finally to the self-extinction of combustion throughout the domain.     

Advanced turbulence modeling improves thermal gradient prediction during compressed hydrogen tank filling

In order to use gaseous hydrogen for mobility of light and heavy duty vehicles, the standard J2601 from the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) recommends that the temperature in the tank must not exceed 85 °C for safety reasons. Prior experiments reported that a vertical thermal stratification can occur during the filling of horizontal tanks under specific conditions. Thermodynamic modeling of hydrogen tank filling can predict the average gas temperature but not the onset of stratification. In a previous study, the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software OpenFOAM was used to carry out simulations of hydrogen filling for a type IV 37 L tank. The CFD results, by comparison with experimental results, were capable to predict the rise of the thermal stratification with however an underestimation of thermal gradient magnitudes. The maximal temperature predicted at the end of the filling was 15.05 °C bellow the experimental measurements. In this work, the k − ω SST turbulence model is replaced by the k − ω SST SAS turbulence model to limit the prediction of high levels of eddy-viscosity in stagnation areas which over-diffuses the temperature. By using the same mesh as in the above mentioned study, (651 482 cells in the fluid region and 449 126 cells in solid regions), the k − ω SST SAS turbulence model is found to be more appropriate for CFD simulation of tank filling as it predicts a thermal gradient magnitude in the gas in better agreement with experimental measurements than the k − ω SST turbulence model for a similar time of simulation. The maximal temperature predicted at the end of the filling is 2.17 °C bellow the experimental measurements.     

GASFLOW-MPI: A new 3-D parallel all-speed CFD code for turbulent dispersion and combustion simulations: Part I: Models,verification and validation

The objective of the presented work is to develop an efficient and validated approach based on a multi-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code for predicting turbulent gaseous dispersion, conjugated heat and mass transfer, multi-phase flow, and combustion of hydrogen mixtures. Applications of interest are accident scenarios relevant to nuclear power plant safety, renewable energy systems involved in hydrogen transport, hydrogen storage, facilities operating with hydrogen, as well as conventional large scale energy systems involving combustible gases. All model development is conducted within the framework of the high-performance scientific computing software GASFLOW-Multi-Physics-Integration (MPI). GASFLOW-MPI is the advanced parallel version of the GASFLOW sequential code with many newly developed and validated models and features. The code provides reliability, robustness and excellent parallel scalability in predicting all-speed flow-fields associated with hydrogen safety, including distribution, turbulent combustion and detonation. In the meanwhile, it has been well verified and validated by many international blind and open benchmarks.The recently developed combustion models in GASFLOW-MPI code are based on the transport equation of a reaction progress variable. The sources consist of turbulence dominated and chemistry kinetics dominated terms. Models have been implemented to compute the turbulent burning velocity for the turbulence controlled combustion rate. One-step and two-step models are included to obtain the chemical kinetics controlled reaction rate. These models, combined with the efficient and verified all-speed solver of the GASFLOW-MPI code, can be used for simulations of deflagration, detonation and the important transition processes like flame acceleration (FA) and deflagration-to-detonation-transition (DDT), without additional need for expert judgment and intervention. It should be noted that the major goal is to develop a reliable and efficient numerical tool for large-scale engineering analysis, instead of resolving the extremely complex physical phenomena and detailed chemistry kinetics on microscopic scales. During the course of this development, new verification and validation studies were completed for phenomena relevant to hydrogen-fueled combustion, such as shock wave capturing, premixed and non-premixed turbulent combustion with convective, conductive and radiation heat losses, detonation of unconfined hydrogen–air mixtures, and confined detonation waves in tubes. Excellent agreements between test data and model predictions support the predictive capabilities of the combustion models in GASFLOW-MPI code. In Part II of the paper, the newly developed CFD methodology has been successfully applied to a first analysis of hydrogen distribution and explosion in the Fukushi Daicchi Unit 1 accident.The major advantage of GASFLOW-MPI code is the all-speed capability of simulating laminar and turbulent distribution processes, slow deflagration, transition to fast hydrogen combustion modes including detonation, within a single scientific software framework without the need of transforming data between different solvers or codes. Since the code can model the detailed heat transfer mechanisms, including convective heat transfer, thermal radiation, steam condensation and heat conduction, the effects of heat losses on hydrogen deflagrations or detonations can also be taken into account. Consequently, the code provides more accurate and reliable mechanical and thermal loads to the confining structures, compared to the overly conservative results from numerical simulations with the adiabatic assumptions.Predictions of flame acceleration mechanisms associated with turbulent flames and flow obstacles, as well as DDT modeling and their comparisons to available data will be presented in future papers. A structural analysis module will be further developed. The ultimate goal is to expand the GASFLOW-MPI code into an integral high-performance multi-physics simulation tool to cover the entire spectrum of phenomena involved in the mechanistic hydrogen safety analysis of large scale industrial facilities.     

Analysis of transient supersonic hydrogen release,dispersion and combustion

A hydrogen leak from a facility, which uses highly compressed hydrogen gas (714 bar, 800 K) during operation was studied. The investigated scenario involves supersonic hydrogen release from a 10 cm² leak of the pressurized reservoir, turbulent hydrogen dispersion in the facility room, followed by an accidental ignition and burn-out of the resulting H₂-air cloud. The objective is to investigate the maximum possible flame velocity and overpressure in the facility room in case of a worst-case ignition. The pressure loads are needed for the structural analysis of the building wall response. The first two phases, namely unsteady supersonic release and subsequent turbulent hydrogen dispersion are simulated with GASFLOW-MPI. This is a well validated parallel, all-speed CFD code which solves the compressible Navier-Stokes equations and can model a broad range of flow Mach numbers. Details of the shock structures are resolved for the under-expanded supersonic jet and the sonic-subsonic transition in the release. The turbulent dispersion phase is simulated by LES. The evolution of the highly transient burnable H₂-air mixture in the room in terms of burnable mass, volume, and average H₂-concentration is evaluated with special sub-routines. For five different points in time the maximum turbulent flame speed and resulting overpressures are computed, using four published turbulent burning velocity correlations. The largest turbulent flame speed and overpressure is predicted for an early ignition event resulting in 35–71 m/s, and 0.13–0.27 bar, respectively.     

Experiments on the distribution of concentration due to buoyant gas low flow rate release in an enclosure

Experiments on buoyant gas dispersion in an enclosure have been conducted in a facility of the typical size of a private garage. Helium is used as a model gas for hydrogen. For release flow rate of the order of 0.1 Nl/min to 10 Nl/min, the dispersion is studied in a tightly sealed configuration of the enclosure and for two vertical positions of a vent, near the bottom and near the top. Results are compared to existing simple analytical models. A good accordance is found in the tightly sealed case. With one vent, some significant differences with models are found for the highest flow rates due to a vertical stratification. However a good accordance is found in the limit of very low flow rates even for the simplest model based on a ventilation flow rate independent of the interior mixture density. The main properties of the equivalent flammable atmosphere formed with the vent are presented.     

Numerical studies of dispersion and flammable volume of hydrogen in enclosures

This paper presents a numerical study of dispersion and flammable volume of hydrogen in enclosures using a simple analytical method and a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code. In the analytical method, the interface height and hydrogen volume fraction of the upper layer are obtained based on mass and buoyancy conservation while the centreline hydrogen volume fraction is derived from similarity solutions for buoyant jets. The two methods (CFD and analytical) are used to simulate an experiment conducted by INERIS, consisting of a 1 g/s hydrogen release for 240 s through a 20 mm diameter orifice into an enclosure. It is found that the predicted centreline hydrogen concentration by both methods agrees with each other and is also in good agreement with the experiment. There are however differences in the calculated total flammable volume because the analytical method does not consider local mixing and diffusion in the upper layer which is assumed uniformly well mixed. The CFD model, in comparison, incorporates the diffusion and stratification phenomena in the upper layer during the mixing stage.