Highlights of the flame acceleration in a confined nonuniform H2/O2/N2 mixture

• Published in: Process safety progress Vol. 29; no. 3; pp. 224 - 230
• Main Authors: Daubech, J., Sochet, I., Proust, Ch
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hoboken Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company 01.09.2010; Wiley
• Subjects: concentration gradient; Engineering Sciences; flame; hydrogen; nonuniform reactive mixture; Reactive fluid environment; nonuniform reactive mixture; hydrogen; flame; concentration gradient
• ISSN: 1066-8527; 1547-5913
• DOI: 10.1002/prs.10338

Gaseous explosion models generally assume the gas mixture to be uniform. However, in a real explosion, the vapor cloud may not be homogeneous, and repartitioning of the reactivity inside the cloud can be subject to wide spatial variations. In this work, experimental tests were run to study the flame propagation and acceleration in nonuniform mixtures. Experiments were performed in a long vertical confined tube with a square cross section, composed of four equal sections. A gate valve separated the tube into two parts, and the composition of the gases was different on each side of the valve. The opening of the valve permitted the mixing of gases by molecular diffusion. For nonuniform mixtures, a mode of propagation identical to that seen in uniform mixtures was observed; however, a third phase of propagation was found, in which the flame velocity increased strongly. This increase occurred with higher hydrogen concentration in an upward‐propagating flame. A concentration gradient can appreciably modify the trajectory and acceleration of a flame. Here, however, the incidence of pressure effects remained modest, since the combustion was confined and the final pressure depended mainly on the quantity of reactants available. © 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog, 2009.