Experimental investigation on the development characteristics of explosive overpressure induced by high-pressure hydrogen jet flame

Abstract

Accidental release of high-pressure hydrogen can induce the self-ignition, and the spontaneously combusting flame can eventually induce a non-premixed jet flame or even explosion. In this study, the explosion overpressure characteristic of hydrogen jet flame outside the pipeline was investigated. Experiments were conducted on high-pressure hydrogen release pipelines with a diameter of 10 mm and pipeline lengths of 750, 1450 and 2200 mm, respectively, under different hydrogen release pressure. The impact of different initial conditions on the peak value of high-pressure hydrogen jet explosion was systematically investigated. The external pressure signals and flame images were completely collected. The results show that the external explosion overpressure decreased with the increase of axial distance away from the nozzle. When the length of the pipeline increased, the peak value of the overpressure was also gradually decreased. Meanwhile, as the high-pressure hydrogen burst pressure increased, the overpressure rose first and then decreased. With the increase of release pressure, when the hydrogen pressure exceeded 8 MPa, the hydrogen flow in the tube formed a blocked flow, so the increase of external explosion overpressure became slow. This topic can provide a reference for the safety development of the high-pressure hydrogen storage system.