It is significant to assess the hydrogen safety of fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) in parking garages with a rapidly increased number of FCVs. In the present work, a Flame Acceleration Simulator (FLACS), a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) module using finite element calculation, was utilized to predict the dispersion process of flammable hydrogen clouds, which was performed by hydrogen leakage from a fuel cell vehicle in an outdoor parking garage. The effect of leakage diameter (2 mm, 3 mm, and 4 mm) and parking configurations (vertical and parallel parking) on the formation of flammable clouds with a range of 4–75% by volume was considered. The emission was assumed to be directed downwards from a Thermally Activated Pressure Relief Device (TPRD) of a 70 MPa storage tank. The results show that the 0.7 m parking space stipulated by the current regulations is less than the safety space of fuel cell vehicles. Compared with a vertical parking configuration, it is safer to park FCVs in parallel. It was also shown that release through a large TPRD orifice should be avoided, as the proportion of the larger hydrogen concentration in the whole flammable domain is prone to more accidental severe consequences, such as overpressure.
For the sake of the increasing demand of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, there are more concerns on the safety of hydrogen refueling stations. As one of the key pieces of equipment, the hydrogen dispenser has drawn attention on this aspect since it involves massive manual operations and may be bothered by a high probability of failure. In this paper, a numerical study is conducted to simulate the possible leakage events of the hydrogen dispenser based on a prototype in China whose working pressure is 70 MPa. The leakage accident is analyzed with respect to leakage sizes, leak directions, and the time to stop the leakage. It is found that, due to the large mass flow rate under such high pressure, the leak direction and the layout of the components inside the dispenser become insignificant, and the ignitable clouds will form inside the dispenser in less than 1 s if there is a leakage of 1% size of the main tube. The ignitable clouds will form near the vent holes outside the dispenser, which may dissipate quickly if the leakage is stopped. On the other hand, the gas inside the dispenser will remain ignitable for a long time, which asks for a design with no possible ignition source inside. The results can be useful in optimizing the design of the dispenser, regarding the reaction time and sensitivity requirements of the leakage detector, the size and amount of vent holes, etc.
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