Exhaustion of a silane jet into a space

Abstract

Issues of explosion and fire safety of silane during its transportation and storage are intimately related to its possible catastrophic leak off from tanks if they become cracked. It turned out that silane self-ignition is possible at some leak off velocities. The interest of the aerospace industry to problems of ignition and combustion of silane combined with other fuels should be also noted. Experimental investigations of such problems, which are rather expensive and laborconsuming, provide primary information for the development and verification of mathematical models of physical and chemical processes, capable of predicting the characteristics of silane mixing, ignition, and combustion induced by its exhaustion. Recent experiments of Prof. Chen and his colleagues from Taiwan allowed them to determine the critical length of the silane jet (distance from the tube exit where ignition of exhausting silane occurred) and the time of silane ignition. In the present work, an attempt is made to simulate these phenomena within the framework of the concept of the critical concentration of silane with studying the dynamics of silane leak off from a tube.