Abstract
When charging most types of industrial lead-acid batteries, hydrogen gas is emitted. A large number of batteries, especially in relatively small areas/enclosures, and in the absence of an adequate ventilation system, may create an explosion hazard. This paper describes full scale tests, which demonstrate conditions that can occur in a battery room in the event of a ventilation system breakdown. Over the course of the tests, full scale hydrogen emission experiments were performed to study emission time and flammable cloud formation according to the assumed emission velocity. On this basis, the characteristics of dispersion of hydrogen in the battery room were obtained. The CFD model Fire Dynamic Simulator created by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) was used for confirmation that the lack of ventilation in a battery room can be the cause of an explosive atmosphere developing, and leading to, a potential huge explosive hazard. It was demonstrated that different ventilation systems provide battery rooms with varying efficiencies of hydrogen removal. The most effective type appeared to be natural ventilation, which proved more effective than mechanical means.
Highlights
IntroductionEspecially its electrical form, has been a big challenge for engineers because of its many attendant dangers
Storage of energy, especially its electrical form, has been a big challenge for engineers because of its many attendant dangers
This means that the lower explosive limit would be reached in one moment in the whole room, resulting in a very high explosive hazard caused by relatively huge mass of hydrogen cumulated
Summary
Especially its electrical form, has been a big challenge for engineers because of its many attendant dangers. Minimum ignition energy 0.017 MJ (as compared to 0.28 MJ for methane) means that hydrogen can been ignited even by the static electricity generated by a high velocity leak [8,9]. All these parameters cause the effective ventilation in the battery rooms to become a very significant parameter. Khan studied the effects of the location of ventilation air intakes and outlets on the dispersion of light gases using the FLUENT 6 CFD computational code [13]. It is used for mechanical ventilation system analyses, sprinklers, nozzles, flows, etc. [21]
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