抄録
Most accidents involving hydrogen begin with its leakage and spreading in the air and spontaneous detonation, which is accompanied by fire or deflagration of hydrogen mixture with heat and /or shocks, which may cause harm to life and equipment. Outflow of hydrogen in a confined volume and its propagation in the volume is the worst option because of the impact of the insularity on the process of detonation. According to the safety requirements for handling hydrogen specialized systems (ventilation, sprinklers, burners etc.) are required for maintaining the hydrogen concentration less than the critical value, to eliminate the possibility of detonation and flame propagation. In this study, a simulation of helium propagation in a confined space with different methods of injection and ventilation of helium is presented, which is used as a safe replacement of hydrogen in experimental studies. Five experiments were simulated in the range from laminar to developed turbulent with different Froude numbers, which determine the regime of the helium outflow in the air. The processes of stratification and erosion of helium stratified layer were investigated. The study includes some results of OECD/NEA-PSI PANDA benchmark and some results of Gamelan project. An analysis of applicability of various turbulence models, which are used to close the system of equations of momentum transport, implemented in the commercial codes STAR CD, STAR CCM +, ANSYS CFX, was conducted for different mesh types (polyhedral and hexahedral). A comparison of computational studies results with experimental data showed a good agreement. In particular, for transition and turbulent regimes the error of the numerical results lies in the range from 5 to 15% for all turbulence models considered. This indicates applicability of the methods considered for some hydrogen safety problems. However, it should be noted that more validation research should be made to use CFD in Hydrogen safety applications with a wide range of physical effects involved.
