Numerical simulation of high-pressure jet fire in on-board hydrogen storage cylinders under fire conditions

Abstract

Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs) may cause fires in the event of an accident. When the high-pressure hydrogen storage cylinders are exposed to fire for a long time, there will be a risk of catastrophic consequences such as leakage, jet fire and explosion. Fire test is the main method to study the safety performance of hydrogen storage cylinders. During the firing process, the wall and internal temperature of the hydrogen storage cylinder rise gradually, and the thermally activated pressure relief device (TPRD) of the cylinder reaches a certain temperature and then releases high-pressure hydrogen to prevent the cylinder from bursting. As the hydrogen storage cylinder is in the fire environment, the release of high-pressure hydrogen will be ignited to form a jet fire and cause damage to personnel and equipment. In this paper, CFD software Fluent was used to numerically simulate the local fire test of the hydrogen storage cylinder with high-temperature air as the fire source. The variation law of cylinder wall temperature, gas temperature and pressure inside the cylinder, and the activation of TPRD were analyzed. At the same time, on the basis of the fire test simulation, a high-pressure hydrogen jet fire simulation numerical model caused by the TPRD action was established. The velocity field, temperature field and hydrogen concentration distribution of the jet fire were obtained, and the overpressure generated by the jet fire and the flame length size were analyzed. The results show that the high-pressure hydrogen released by TPRD was ignited under the fire condition to produce a jet flame and generated an overpressure in the jet direction, and the influence range of the overpressure was smaller than the influence range of the jet flame.