Modelowanie numeryczne jako narzędzie do badania wybuchów wodoru

Abstract

Currently, the burning of fossil fuels in industry or for transportation has a major negative impact on the environment. Most countries are concerned with environmental security and pollution regulation, motivating researchers around the world to find alternative solutions. An alternative solution may be the large-scale use of hydrogen. Applications of hydrogen in industry or for transportation face challenging conditions. Among other things, we are talking about pressures of up to 1000 bar, extreme temperatures starting from -253 °C (for liquefied hydrogen) and up to 650 °C - 950 °C (in the case of solid oxide electrolytic cells), as well as the imminent risk of explosion. This is because H2 has an extremely low ignition energy, with much wider flammability limits compared to other fuels such as methane or propane. Hydrogen is a highly reactive and explosive gas. Therefore, explosion protection is essential for all processes involving the use of hydrogen in one form or another. The same principles that are applied to natural gas can be applied. Hydrogen behaves similarly to methane in terms of explosion risk, meaning in principle that explosion protection works similarly for both gases. However, there are still many unknowns regarding the phenomenon of initiation and propagation of explosions caused by air-hydrogen mixtures. Taking into account the multiple aspects related to security techniques that must be taken into account for the use of hydrogen in industry or for transport, the current paper focuses on aspects with regard to the use of modern numerical modelling tools for increasing the occupational health and safety level in technological processes endangered by the occurrence of explosive atmospheres generated by air-hydrogen mixtures. It presents a review on the main research activities to be carried out within a the H2Model research project implemented between 2023 – 2026, project which focuses on numerical modelling on the ignition and propagation of explosions caused by air-hydrogen mixtures.