Simulating vented hydrogen deflagrations: Improved modelling in the CFD tool FLACS-hydrogen

This paper describes validation of the computational fluid dynamics tool FLACS-Hydrogen. The validation study focuses on concentration and pressure data from vented deflagration experiments performed in 20-foot shipping containers as part of the project Improving hydrogen safety for energy applications through pre-normative research on vented deflagrations (HySEA), funded by the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen 2 Joint Undertaking (FCH 2 JU). The paper presents results for tests involving inhomogeneous hydrogen-air clouds generated from realistic releases performed during the HySEA project. For both experiments and simulations, the peak overpressures obtained for the stratified mixtures are higher than those measured for lean homogeneous mixtures with the same amount of hydrogen. Using an in-house version of FLACS-Hydrogen with the numerical solver Flacs3 and improved physics models results in significantly improved predictions of the peak overpressures, compared to the predictions by the standard Flacs2 solver. The paper includes suggestions for further improvements to the model system. (C) 2020 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This paper validates the computational fluid dynamics tool FLACS-Hydrogen in vented deflagration experiments conducted in 20-foot shipping containers, showing that peak pressures for stratified mixtures are higher than for homogeneous hydrogen mixtures. Using an improved numerical solver and physics models leads to significantly better predictions of peak pressures.