Safety of Hydrogen and Natural Gas Mixtures by Pipelines- ANR French Project Hydromel

In order to gain a better understanding of hazards linked with Hydrogen/Natural gas mixtures transport by pipeline, the National Institute of Industrial Environment and Risks (INERIS) alongside with the Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), the industrial companies Air Liquide and GDF SUEZ, and the French Research Institutes ICARE and PPRIME (CNRS) have been involved in a project called HYDROMEL. This project was partially funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR) in the framework of its PAN-H program aimed at promoting the R&D activities related to the hydrogen deployment. Firstly, the project partners investigated how a NG/H2 mixture may influence the modelling of a hazard scenario, i.e. how the addition of a quantity of hydrogen in natural gas can increase the potential of danger. Therefore it was necessary to build an experimental database of physics properties for mixtures. Secondly, effect distances in accidental scenarios that could happen on pipelines have been calculated with existing models adapted to the mixtures. This part was preceded by a benchmark exercise between all partners models and experimental results found in the literature. Finally the consortium wrote a good practice guideline for modelling the effects related to the release of natural gas /hydrogen mixture?. The selected models and their comparison with data collected in the literature as well as the experimental results of this project, and the main conclusions of the guidelines are presented in this paper.