Modelling the mitigation of hydrogen deflagrations in a nuclear waste silo ullage by depleting the oxygen concentration with nitrogen

Abstract

It is expected that significant transient releases of hydrogen could occur during the decommissioning of a nuclear waste storage plant that would result in a transient flammable atmosphere. Interest has been expressed in the use of nitrogen dilution in a vented silo ullage space in order to reduce the oxygen level and thereby mitigate the overpressure rise should a hydrogen–air deflagration occur.In the work presented here the data characterising the influence of oxygen depletion via nitrogen dilution upon the burning velocity of hydrogen–air mixtures have been obtained using the COSILAB code (and also compared with experimental test data). These data have then been used with the FLACS-HYDROGEN CFD-tool to try to predict the potential explosion overpressure reduction that might be achieved using oxygen depletion (via nitrogen dilution), for a transient hydrogen bubble sudden gaseous release (SGR) scenario occurring in a silo ullage type geometry.The simulation results suggest that using nitrogen dilution to deplete the oxygen levels to 12.5% or 9.9% would produce only a relatively modest reduction in the predicted peak overpressure. However, with an oxygen depletion level of 7%, the rate of pressure rise is more substantially slowed and the predicted maximum pressure rise is significantly reduced.