Effect of hydrogen addition on the explosion characteristics of methane-hydrogen-air mixture in T-shaped bifurcation pipe

ABSTRACT

Adding a certain proportion of hydrogen into the natural gas pipeline network is an effective way to solve the economical transportation problem of hydrogen. However, due to the special physical and chemical properties of hydrogen, there will be great potential safety hazards in the process of hydrogen transportation in the pipe network. In this paper, we studied the effect of adding hydrogen into T-tube on the explosion characteristics of methane hydrogen air premixed gas through experiments and numerical simulation. The results showed that hydrogen addition has an obvious effect on the explosion characteristics of the mixed gas. When the volume content of hydrogen exceeds 10%, the strengthening effect of the T-shaped bifurcation structure on the explosion reaction was more significant. The explosion characteristics in the upstream of the T-shaped bifurcation structure pipeline are consistent with those in the straight pipe, but it has a great impact on the downstream of the T-shaped bifurcation structure. When the flame passed through the bifurcation, the turbulence intensity in the pipe increased rapidly, which resulted the flame propagation velocity and explosion overpressure rising rapidly and exceeding the level before the bifurcation. The dynamic strain occurred on the thin wall of the pipe under the dynamic impact of gas cloud explosion, and the response of thin-wall strain had a good consistency with the explosion overpressure. In the experiment, the maximum strain at the bifurcation structure reached $1.02719\times {10}^{-5}$ when the volume fraction of hydrogen was 20%.

KEYWORDS:

• Hydrogen addition
• Methane
• T-shaped bifurcation pipe
• Explosion characteristics
• Shock response

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Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. http://cpe.cczu.edu.cn/2020/1019/c12552a239113/page.htm

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Postgraduate Research & Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province KYCX20-2576, SJCX20-0986[No.KYCX20-2576]; Postgraduate Research & Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province KYCX20-2576, SJCX20-0986 [No. SJCX20-0986]; National Key R&D Program of China [No.2017YFC0805100]; Special Funding Project of Basic Scientific Research Business Fee of China Academy of Safety Production[No. 2019JBKY08]; Innovative Talents Team Project of “Six Talents Peaks” in Jiangsu Province [No. Innovative Talents Team Project of “Six Talents Peaks” in Jiangsu Province Innovative Talents Team Project of “Six Talents Peaks” in Jiangsu Province TD-JNHB-013]; Major Projects supported by the Natural Science Research of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions[No. 17KJA440001].