Explosive Phase Transition in LH2

This paper describes two models for analysing and simulating the physical effects of explosive phase transition of liquid hydrogen (LH2), also known as cold BLEVE. The present work is based on theoretical and experimental work for liquefied CO2. A Rankine Hugoniot analysis for evaporation waves that was previously developed for CO2 is now extended to LH2. A CFD-method for simulating two-phase flow with mass transfer between the phases is presented and compared with the Rankine Hugoniot analysis results. The Rankine Hugoniot method uses real fluid equations of state suited for LH2 while the CFD method uses linear equations of state suited for shock capturing methods. The results show that there will be a blast from a catastrophic rupture of an LH2 vessel and that the blast waves will experience a slow decay due to the large positive pressure phase.