圆柱形无约束气云爆炸高温效应研究

为了分析无约束可燃气云爆炸产生的高温伤害效应,建立了相应的数学模型,利用有限体积的离散方法,对无约束空间内甲烷浓度10％、高径比为1的圆柱形可燃气云爆炸的瞬态温度场进行了数值研究。研究结果表明,圆柱形可燃气云爆炸的温度场呈不对称性分布,靠近地面处足最危险区域,高温可能达到的最大怪直高度和最大水平距离分别约为圆柱体高的2倍和半径的3．2倍。对数值模拟结果的数据进行多项式拟合,得到了圆柱形可燃气云爆炸场最高温度随水平距离、初温及参与爆炸气云质量的函数关系式,给可燃气云爆炸灾害的预测及防护提供了科学依据。     

开敞空间可燃气云爆炸冲击波超压及灾害动力响应研究评述

为了进一步梳理和分析开敞空间可燃云爆炸冲击波超压传播规律及灾害动力响应方面的各项研究成果,推进可燃气体爆炸安全防控,减少人员伤亡和经济损失。在分析现有研究的基础上,总结开敞空间可燃气云爆炸冲击波超压传播规律及灾害动力响应研究等方面存在的不足,提出开敞空间多元混合气体爆炸冲击波超压传播规律研究、多影响参数下可燃气云爆炸冲击波超压传播规律定量分析、基于可燃气云爆炸冲击波超压作用下的承载体动力响应等未来研究的关键技术问题。     

井喷失控点火时间与方位探讨

利用计算流体力学方法(CFD)对井喷失控后天然气扩散过程进行研究,在有限元基础上建立模型,采用κ-ε紊流模型求解得出井喷失控后可燃性蒸气云随时间、风速变化的影响情况,求出稳态以后易爆区域的蒸气云形状。取5.0%和15%作为甲烷的爆炸上、下限,在不同区域进行点火求解爆燃结果,通过比较给出推荐的点火时间和点火方位。该研究成果可对井喷失控蒸气云爆燃危害性进行预测,有助于指导井喷失控进行点火放喷工作,避免爆燃事故的发生。     

Use of water spray curtain to disperse LNG vapor clouds

Effective safety measures to prevent and mitigate the consequences of an accidental release of flammable LNG are critical. Water spray curtain is currently recognized as an effective technique to control and mitigate various hazards in the industries. It has been used to absorb, dilute and disperse both toxic and flammable vapor cloud. It is also used as protection against heat radiation, in case of fighting vapor cloud fire. Water curtain has also been considered as one of the most economic and promising LNG vapor cloud control techniques. Water curtains are expected to enhance LNG vapor cloud dispersion mainly through mechanical effects, dilution, and thermal effects. The actual phenomena involved in LNG vapor and water curtain interaction were not clearly established from previous research. LNG spill experiments have been performed at the Brayton Fire Training Field at Texas A&M University (TAMU) to understand the effect of water curtain in controlling and dispersing LNG vapor cloud. This paper summarizes experimental methodology and presents data from two water curtain tests. The analysis of the test results are also presented to identify the effectiveness of these two types of water spray curtains in enhancing the LNG vapor cloud dispersion.     

Vapor flammability above aqueous solutions of flammable liquids

The flammability of vapors above aqueous solutions of ethanol and acetonitrile was studied experimentally in a 20-L combustion apparatus. No liquid was present in the apparatus, but the vapor concentrations were adjusted to correspond to the vapor in equilibrium with a specified aqueous solution. The experimental results for these two systems show that

• As water is added to the vapor, the lower boundary of the flammability zone decreases. For ethanol, the lower flammability limits (LFL) decreases from 3.7% for pure vapor to 3.2% with saturated water vapor. For acetonitrile, the decrease is from 4.2% to 3.8%. Thus, to a good approximation, the water vapor can be treated as an inert, enabling the data to be displayed on a single flammability triangle diagram. This provides a very simplified method for estimating the flammable behavior for aqueous solutions.

• The upper boundary of the flammability zone is unchanged with the addition of water.

• The limiting oxygen concentration (LOC) is essentially constant for all concentrations of aqueous solutions. The LOC for the pure solvent may be used as a universal LOC for all solvent concentrations.

• The vapor mixture above the aqueous solution is not flammable below a certain liquid mol fraction of flammable. The flammable concentration at which this occurs can be called the maximum safe solvent concentration (MSSC). A method is presented to determine the MSSC from experimental flammability data.

• The oxygen concentration defining the flammable boundary for the vapor decreases rapidly from the MSSC and then increases as the liquid solvent concentration increases.

The calculated adiabatic flame temperature (CAFT) method qualitatively predicts the same behavior as the experimental data.     

Validation of FLACS against experimental data sets from the model evaluation database for LNG vapor dispersion

The siting of facilities handling liquefied natural gas (LNG), whether for liquefaction, storage or regasification purposes, requires the hazards from potential releases to be evaluated. One of the consequences of an LNG release is the creation of a flammable vapor cloud, that may be pushed beyond the facility boundaries by the wind and thus present a hazard to the public. Therefore, numerical models are required to determine the footprint that may be covered by a flammable vapor cloud as a result of an LNG release. Several new models have been used in recent years for this type of simulations. This prompted the development of the “Model evaluation protocol for LNG vapor dispersion models” (MEP): a procedure aimed at evaluating quantitatively the ability of a model to accurately predict the dispersion of an LNG vapor cloud.This paper summarizes the MEP requirements and presents the results obtained from the application of the MEP to a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model – FLACS. The entire set of 33 experiments included in the model validation database were simulated using FLACS. The simulation results are reported and compared with the experimental data. A set of statistical performance measures are calculated based on the FLACS simulation results and compared with the acceptability criteria established in the MEP. The results of the evaluation demonstrate that FLACS can be considered a suitable model to accurately simulate the dispersion of vapor from an LNG release.     

LNG accident dynamic simulation: Application for hazardous consequence reduction

The evaluation of exclusion (hazard) zones around the LNG stations is essential for risk assessment in LNG industry. In this study, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations have been conducted for the two potential hazards, LNG flammable vapor dispersion and LNG pool fire radiation, respectively, to evaluate the exclusion zones. The spatial and temporal distribution of hazard in complex spill scenario has been taken into account in the CFD model. Experimental data from Falcon and Montoir field tests have been used to validate the simulation results. With the valid CFD model, the mitigation of the vapor dispersion with spray water curtains and the pool fire with high expansion foam were investigated. The spray water curtains were studied as a shield to prevent LNG vapor dispersing, and two types of water spray curtain, flat and cone, were analyzed to show their performance for reduction and minimization of the hazard influencing distance and area. The high expansion foam firefighting process was studied with dynamic simulation of the foam action, and the characteristics of the foam action on the reduction of LNG vaporization rate, vapor cloud and flame size as well as the thermal radiation hazard were analyzed and discussed.     

Theoretical and experimental study of the inhibition and inert effect of HFC125, HFC227ea and HFC13I1 on the flammability of HFC32

HFC32 is a potential alternative refrigerant with excellent thermal performance, but the flammability is a main obstacle for its applications. The group contribution method is utilized to analyze the inhibition efficiency of nonflammable refrigerants in binary mixtures. Furthermore, a novel equation of predicting the minimum inerting concentration of nonflammable refrigerants has been proposed by analyzing the variation of the flame propagation velocity and the flammable refrigerant concentration. Experimental studies of the explosion limits of HFC125/HFC32, HFC227ea/HFC32 and HFC13I1/HFC32 were carried out and the ranges of explosion limits were obtained. At the same time, the relationship between the maximum charge of the flammable refrigerants and lower flammability limit (LFL) was analyzed. The result demonstrates that the proposed novel theoretical equation can effectively predict the minimum inerting concentration of nonflammable refrigerants to flammable refrigerants, and the theoretical results have significance on the security application of the binary mixtures.     

A study of the blast wave shape from elongated VCEs

Elongated congestion patterns are common at chemical processing and petroleum refining facilities due to the arrangement of processing units. The accidental vapor cloud explosion (VCE) which occurred at the Buncefield, UK facility involved an elongated congested volume formed by the trees and undergrowth along the site boundary. Although elongated congested volumes are common, there have been few evaluations reported for the blast loads produced by elongated VCEs. Standard VCE blast load prediction techniques do not directly consider the impact of this congested volume geometry versus a more compact geometry.This paper discusses an evaluation performed to characterize the blast loads from elongated VCEs and to identify some significant differences in the resulting blast wave shape versus those predicted by well-known VCE blast load methodologies (e.g., BST and TNO MEM). The standard blast curves are based on an assumption that the portion of the flammable gas cloud participating in the VCE is hemispherical and located at grade level. The results of this evaluation showed that the blast wave shape for an elongated VCE in the near-field along the long-axis direction is similar to that for an acoustic wave generated in hemispherical VCEs with a low flame speed. Like an acoustic wave, an elongated VCE blast wave has a very quick transition from the positive phase peak pressure to the negative phase peak pressure, relative to the positive phase duration. The magnitude of the applied negative pressure on a building face depends strongly on the transition time between the positive and negative phase peak pressures, and this applied negative phase can be important to structural response under certain conditions. The main purpose of this evaluation was to extend previous work in order to investigate how an elongated VCE geometry impacts the resultant blast wave shape in the near-field. The influence of the normalized flame travel distance and the flame speed on the blast wave shape was examined. Deflagration and deflagration-to-detonation transition regimes were also identified for unconfined elongated VCEs as a function of the normalized flame travel distance and flame speed attained at a specified flame travel distance.     

抑制煤矿瓦斯爆炸传播的新技术设想

基于石油阻火装置对可燃气体爆炸传播的火焰具有淬熄作用,对压力波具有抑制作用,提出将金属丝网、波纹板型等几种结构用于抑制煤矿瓦斯爆炸传播的新思路,填补了阻火器在煤矿中应用的空白,为煤矿阻隔爆技术开拓出新的领域.     

A study on the effect of trees on gas explosions

The downstream as well as the upstream oil and gas industry has for a number of years been aware of the potential for flame acceleration and overpressure generation due to obstacles in gas clouds caused by leaks of flammable substances. To a large extent the obstacles were mainly considered to be equipment, piping, structure etc. typically found in many installations. For landbased installations there may however also be a potential for flame acceleration in regions of vegetation, like trees and bushes. This is likely to have been the case for the Buncefield explosion that occurred in 2005 (Buncefield Major Incident Investigation Board, 2008), which led to the work described in the present paper. The study contains both a numerical and an experimental part and was performed in the period 2006–2008 (Bakke and Brewerton, 2008, Van Wingerden and Wilkins, 2008).The numerical analysis consisted of modelling the Buncefield tank farm and the surrounding area with FLACS. The site itself was not significantly congested and it was not expected to give rise to high overpressures in case of a hydrocarbon leak. However, alongside the roads surrounding the site (Buncefield Lane and Cherry Tree Lane), dense vegetation in the form of trees and bushes was included in the model. This was based on a site survey (which was documented by video) performed in the summer of 2006.A large, shallow, heavier-than-air gas cloud was defined to cover part of the site and surroundings. Upon ignition a flame was established in the gas cloud. This flame accelerated through the trees along the surrounding roads, and resulted in high overpressures of several barg being generated by FLACS. This is to the authors’ knowledge the first time a possible effect of vegetation on explosions has been demonstrated by 3D analyses.As a consequence of these results, and since the software had been validated against typical industrial congestion rather than dense vegetation, a set of experiments to try to demonstrate if these effects were physical was carried out as well. The test volume consisted of a plastic tunnel, 20 m long with a semi-circular cross-section 3.2 m in diameter allowing for representing lanes of vegetation. The total volume of the tent was approximately 80.4 m³. The experimental programme involved different degrees of vegetation size, vegetation density (blocking ratio) and number of vegetation lanes (over the full length of the tunnel). The experiments were performed with stoichiometric propane–air mixtures resulting in continuously accelerating flames over the full length of the tunnel for some of the scenarios investigated.The main conclusions of the study are that trees can have an influence on flame acceleration in gas–air clouds, and that advanced models such as FLACS can be used to study such influence. More research is needed, however, because even if FLACS predicts flame acceleration in dense vegetation, no evidence exists that applying the code to trees rather than rigid obstacles provides results of acceptable accuracy.     

Structure of flames propagating through aluminum particles cloud and combustion process of particles

Structure of flames propagating through aluminum particles clouds and combustion processes of the particles have been examined experimentally to understand the fundamental behavior of a metal dust explosion. The combustion process of individual aluminum particles in a flame propagating through the aluminum particles cloud has been recorded by using a high-speed video camera with a microscopic optical system, and analyzed. The flame is shown to be consisted of a preheat zone of about 3 mm thick, followed by a combustion zone of 5–7 mm thick. In the combustion zone, discrete gas phase flames are observed around each aluminum particle. Also an asymmetric flame around a particle is observed, which might be caused by an ejection of aluminum vapor from a crack of oxide shell surrounding the particle.     

穿越城市生活区的天然气管道泄漏连锁爆燃后果评估研究*

为评估城市天然气管道泄漏连锁爆燃事故后果,基于计算流体力学(CFD)方法构建穿越城市区域的天然气管道泄漏连锁爆燃后果预测与评估模型,以某城市生活区域为例,在城市生活区域建筑物内风场流动计算的基础上,模拟风场作用下可燃气体在城市建筑物空间内的运移规律,预测可燃气云的积聚区域;考虑意外点火的情况,计算城市生活区域内可燃气云爆燃灾害特征,预测爆燃超压、热辐射和高温的影响。研究结果表明:由于建筑物之间的阻挡与反射作用,建筑物下风向有明显的低风速区域,并在一定时间段后扩散过程趋于稳定;在爆燃火焰作用下,高温和热辐射会造成建筑物部分钢结构发生失效变形。     

Evaluating the potential for overpressures from the ignition of an LNG vapor cloud during offloading

Ignition of natural gas (composed primarily of methane) is generally not considered to pose explosion hazards when in unconfined and low- or medium-congested areas, as most of the areas within LNG regasification facilities can typically be classified. However, as the degrees of confinement and/or congestion increase, the potential exists for the ignition of a methane cloud to result in damaging overpressures (as demonstrated by the recurring residential explosions due to natural gas leaks). Therefore, it is prudent to examine a proposed facility’s design to identify areas where vapor cloud explosions (VCEs) may cause damage, particularly if the damage may extend off site.An area of potential interest for VCEs is the dock, while an LNG carrier is being offloaded: the vessel hull provides one degree of confinement and the shoreline may provide another; some degree of congestion is provided by the dock and associated equipment.In this paper, the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software FLACS is used to evaluate the consequences of the ignition of a flammable vapor cloud from an LNG spill during the LNG carrier offloading process. The simulations will demonstrate different approaches that can be taken to evaluate a vapor cloud explosion scenario in a partially confined and partially congested geometry.     

Safety devices for gas welding, cutting and allied processes

This paper describes the results of extensive research to determine the limit of safety against flame transmission for sintered metal flame arrester elements when stressed by a flashback in a fuel-gas/oxygen mixture and when stressed through a stabilized burning of a flowing mixture of fuel-gas and air and of fuel-gas and oxygen at the sintered metal element. On the basis of the results of these investigations, the limit of safety against flame transmission for sintered metal flame arrester elements can be estimated and the conditions for testing can be specified. An analysis of the protection of gas outlets on gas distribution lines for welding, cutting and allied processes has been carried out, resulting in recommendations for necessary changes to the regulations for testing of safety devices with sintered metal flame arrester elements, which should be made in the next revision of the corresponding technical regulations for acetylene installations and calcium carbide stores (TRAC), and the standards DIN 8521, EN 730 and ISO 5175.     

A method for simulation of vapour cloud explosions based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD)

The effectiveness of the application of CFD to vapour cloud explosion (VCE) modelling depends on the accuracy with which geometrical details of the obstacles likely to be encountered by the vapour cloud are represented and the correctness with which turbulence is predicted. This is because the severity of a VCE strongly depends on the types of obstacles encountered by the cloud undergoing combustion; the turbulence generated by the obstacles influences flame speed and feeds the process of explosion through enhanced mixing of fuel and oxidant. In this paper a CFD-based method is proposed on the basis of the author’s finding that among the various models available for assessing turbulence, the realizable k-? model yields results closer to experimental findings than the other, more frequently used, turbulence models if used in conjunction with the eddy-dissipation model. The applicability of the method has been demonstrated in simulating the dispersion and ignition of a typical vapour cloud formed as a result of a spill from a liquid petroleum gas (LPG) tank situated in a refinery. The simulation made it possible to assess the overpressures resulting from the combustion of the flammable vapour cloud. The phenomenon of flame acceleration, which is a characteristic of combustion enhanced in the presence of obstacles, was clearly observed. Comparison of the results with an oft-used commercial software reveals that the present CFD-based method achieves a more realistic simulation of the VCE phenomena.     

Dust explosion hazard assessment

The majority of powders that are used in the processing industries are combustible (also referred to as flammable, explosible). An explosion will occur if the concentration of the combustible dust that is suspended in air is sufficient to propagate flame when ignited by a sufficiently energetic ignition source.A systematic approach to identifying dust cloud explosion safety against their consequences generally involves:-Identification of locations where combustible dust cloud atmospheres could be present-Understanding of the explosion characteristics of the dust(s)-Identification of potential ignition sources that could be present under normal and abnormal conditions-Proper process and facility design to eliminate and/or minimize the occurrence of dust explosions and protect people and facilities against their consequences-Adequate maintenance of facilities to prevent ignition sources and minimize dust releaseThis presentation will discuss the conditions that are required for dust cloud explosions to occur and presents a well-tried approach to identify, assess, and eliminate/control dust explosion hazards in facilities.     

Extinguishment of hydrogen laminar diffusion flames by water vapor in a cup burner apparatus

Transient computations with full hydrogen chemistry were performed to reveal the flame structure and extinguishment process of co-flow, hydrogen diffusion flame suppressed by water vapor. As the concentration of water vapor was increased, the flame detached away from the burner brim and formed an edge flame at the flame base. Water vapor showed larger chemical inhibition effect than nitrogen when extinguishing hydrogen flame, which was attributed to its enhanced third body effect in the reaction H + O₂ + M = HO₂ + M. The minimum extinguishing concentration (MEC) of water vapor and nitrogen was predicted by Senecal formula and perfectly stirred reactor (PSR) model respectively. The MECs predicted by PSR model agree with the MECs calculated by Fluent, which shows that 1) the flame extinction is controlled by the flame base, and 2) radiation absorption is negligible. The measured MECs are in a reasonable agreement with the values calculated by Fluent, which demonstrates the accuracy of the CFD model. A simple model was used to investigate the relative importance of extinguishing mechanisms of water vapor. The results show that in a co-flow configuration the thermal cooling and chemical inhibition effect are the main extinguishing mechanisms in suppressing hydrogen diffusion cup burner flame.     

原油储罐区可燃气体探测器布置优化方案研究

为有效预警原油储备区储罐气体泄漏,制定气体探测器布置优化方案,以某大型原油站库为例,基于CFD法和FLACS软件模拟原油泄漏及可燃蒸汽云溢散分布,通过分析蒸汽云扩散规律,实现全方位气体探测器优化布置。结果表明:原油储罐区探测器分别布置在区块21-2、6-1、31-1、40-2,且每个罐组总计布置16处;优化设置方案可满足所有泄漏场景下可燃气体探测需求,有效减少探测器配置冗余。可为泄漏事故早期预警提供技术支持。