Numerical investigation of F₂ and H₂ explosion process under flow conditions

ABSTRACT

Hydrogen is a typical clean energy, the reaction of H₂ and with stronger oxidant F₂ may produce higher energy. To explore the explosion process of H₂ and F₂ under flow conditions and its released heat characteristics, the explosion process of F₂ filling in H₂ pipe with a length of 1 m and a diameter of 0.1 m was numerically simulated, and the influence of F₂ filling rate on the explosion process was studied. The results show that when F₂ was filling because F₂ rapidly mixed with H₂ and reacted to generate HF, the filled F₂, reaction-generated HF, and unreacted H₂ formed a three-stage F₂-HF-H₂ structure in the pipeline, and the formation of this structure was the coupling of flow and reaction; The mass rate has a significant influence on the combustion and explosion process of F₂ and H₂. The maximum explosion overpressures reached 0.5 MPa at the mass rate of 0.02 kg/s and 0.42 MPa at 0.03 kg/s, respectively.

Graphical abstract

KEYWORDS:

• Hydrogen
• fluorine gas
• explosion process
• flow coupling

Acknowledgments

The research presented in this paper was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (11772057, 11972089).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [11772057, 11972089].