Integral solutions for selected turbulent quantities of small-scale hydrogen leakage: A non-buoyant jet or momentum-dominated buoyant jet regime

Abstract

In this paper, the integral method is used to derive a complete set of results and expressions for selected physical turbulent properties of a non-buoyant jet or momentum-dominated buoyant jet regime of small-scale hydrogen leakage. Several quantities of interest, including the cross-stream velocity, Reynolds stress, velocity-concentration correlation (radial flux), dominant turbulent kinetic energy production term, turbulent eddy viscosity and turbulent eddy diffusivity are obtained. In addition, the turbulent Schmidt number is estimated and the normalized jet-feed material density and the normalized momentum flux density are correlated. Throughout this paper, experimental results from Schefer et al. [Schefer RW, Houf WG, Williams TC. Investigation of small-scale unintended releases of hydrogen: momentum-dominated regime. Int J Hydrogen Energy 2008;33(21):6373–84] and other works for the momentum-dominated jet resulting from small-scale hydrogen leakage are used in the integral method. For a non-buoyant jet or momentum-dominated regime of a buoyant jet, both the centerline velocity and centerline concentration are proportional with z −1. The effects of buoyancy-generated momentum are assumed to be small, and the Reynolds number is sufficient for fully developed turbulent flow. The hydrogen–air momentum-dominated regime or non-buoyant jet is compared with the air–air jet as an example of non-buoyant jets. Good agreement was found between the current results and experimental results from the literature. In addition, the turbulent Schmidt number was shown to depend solely on the ratio of the momentum spread rate to the material spread rate.