Influence of thermal radiation on layered dust explosions

Multidimensional unsteady numerical simulations were carried out to explore the influence of thermal radiation on the propagation and structure of layered coal dust explosions. The simulation solved the reactive compressible Navier-Stokes equations coupled to an Eulerian kinetic-theory-based granular multiphase model. The radiation heat transfer is modeled by solving the radiation transfer equation using the third-order filtered spherical harmonics approximation. The radiation was assumed to be gray and all boundaries of the domain are black at 300 K. The reaction mechanism is based on global irreversible reactions for each physical process including devolatilization, char burning, moisture vaporization, and methane combustion. The governing equations were solved using a high-order Godunov method. Several simulation configurations were considered: layer volume fractions of 47% and 1%, channel lengths of 10 m and 40 m, and radiative and non-radiative cases. The results show that gray radiation has a significant influence on the propagation and structure of a layered dust explosion. However, radiation can have opposite effects on different scenarios. For example, radiation promotes the propagation of the dust flame when the layer volume fraction was 1% and in the short-channel cases where reflected shock-flame interactions are important. However, radiation enhances quenching for the 47% volume fraction dust layer in the longer channel.