Phenomena of Dispersion and Explosion of High Pressurized Hydrogen

To make “Hydrogen vehicles and refuelling station systems” fit for public use, research on hydrogen safety and designing mitigative measures are significant. For compact storage, it is planned to store under high pressure (40MPa) at the refuelling stations, so that the safety for the handling of high-pressurized hydrogen is essential. This paper describes the experimental investigation on the hypothetical dispersion and explosion of high-pressurized hydrogen gas which leaks through a large scale break in piping and blows down to atmosphere. At first, we investigated time history of distribution of gas concentration in order to comprehend the behaviour of the dispersion of high-pressurized hydrogen gas before explosion experiments. The explosion experiments were carried out with changing the time of ignition after the start of dispersion. Hydrogen gas with the initial pressure of 40MPa was released through a nozzle of 10mm diameter. Through these experiments, it was clarified that the explosion power depends not only on the concentration and volume of hydrogen/air pre-mixture, but also on the turbulence characteristics before ignition. To clarify the explosion mechanism, the numerical computer simulation about the same experimental conditions was performed. The initial conditions such as hydrogen distribution and turbulent characteristics were given by the results of the atmospheric diffusion simulation. By the verification of these experiments, the results of CFD were fully improved.