| dc.description.abstract | Over the last few decades, the demand for hydrogen has significantly grown. Its high energy content and relatively small environmental effect make it an ideal energy source and chemical feedstock. However, the perceived high risk of hydrogen in the eyes of society is a key challenge that has to be addressed before any future widespread utilization of hydrogen can be achieved. Hydrogen is highly flammable and combustible when mixed with air. It is also very light and buoyant, resulting in a false assumption that hydrogen will not explode in unconfined space. However, there have been at least fourteen industrial incidents involving an unconfined hydrogen vapor cloud explosion (VCE), which show the knowledge gap in hydrogen safety that requires further research.
In this study, the consequences of unconfined hydrogen releases were evaluated using computational fluid dynamic simulation software, FLACS, to determine its potential to explode and to analyze the parameters that can promote hydrogen VCE: initial pressure, time to ignition, and leak height position.
This study concluded that high-pressure hydrogen has the potential to build up a large vapor cloud and explode even without confinement. The highest overpressure produced in the simulation was 0.71 barg, which resulted from igniting a hydrogen gas cloud from a 207 bar hydrogen source leaking at 1 m height. This study also gave the recommended distance from a high-pressure hydrogen processing unit to nearby occupied buildings to use in conjunction with industrial spacing tables for fire hazards. | en |
