Evolution characteristics of ethyl ether spray explosion process in 20L near-spherical vessel

Abstract

As a biofuel with a wide range of uses, ethyl ether leakage may cause serious spray explosion accidents during storage and transportation, however, the evolution characteristics and process mechanism of ethyl ether spray explosion have not been thoroughly studied. Therefore, the effects of material temperature and ambient temperature on ethyl ether spray explosion at different concentrations are studied by means of spray explosion experiment system. In this paper, the development of ethyl ether spray explosion with a mass concentration range of 107.1–392.7 g/m3 was studied at different ambient temperature and material temperature. Where the ambient temperature range is 298.15–323.15 K, and the material temperature range is 298.15–323.15 K. Moreover, in this paper, the risk of spray explosion is more clearly understood through the classification of deflagration index, and the explosion characteristics of spray explosion are analyzed comprehensively according to the boiling point as the dividing line. The maximum explosion pressure and its arrival time, the rate of rise of the maximum explosion pressure and its arrival time are used as the basis to evaluate the effect of the explosion process of ethyl ether spray. The results show that when the ambient temperature is lower than the boiling point temperature of ethyl ether, the increase of ambient temperature has little effect on the explosion characteristics of ethyl ether spray. When the ambient temperature is higher than 308.15 K, the maximum explosion pressure and maximum rate of pressure rise of ethyl ether spray explosion increase. At medium and low concentrations(107.1 g/m3, 178.5–249.9 g/m3), the increase of ambient temperature is conducive to the rapid development of spray explosion, and the arrival time of maximum explosion pressure and pressure rise rate both show a decreasing trend. However, under the influence of incomplete combustion at high concentration, the explosion development rate is reduced. At lower material temperature, the maximum explosion pressure and the maximum rate of pressure rise increase with the increase of material temperature. When the material temperature is higher than 303.15 K, the ethyl ether droplet temperature is higher than the ambient temperature, and the heat loss of the droplet has a certain inhibition effect on spray explosion. Especially when the material temperature is high, the inhibition effect is more significant, so when the material temperature rises to 323.15 K, the maximum rate of pressure rise decreases. The effect of ambient temperature on the explosion grade is more obvious than that of the material temperature, and the effect on the explosion characteristics of ethyl ether spray is also greater.