Experimental study of flame propagation in semiconfined geometries with obstacles
Large spills of liquefied natural gas (LNG) or other combustible materials can potentially lead to disastrous consequences, especially if the dispersing combustible cloud finds a suitable ignition source. So far, very little is known about the detailed behavior of a large burning cloud. Full-scale experiments are economically prohibitive and, therefore we must rely on laboratory and field experiments, scaling up the results to make predictions about larger accidents. This communication describes our laboratory-scale experiments with a combustible propane-air mixture in various partially confined geometries, and summarizes our findings. Results of numerical simulations of the experiments are also presented and compared with the experimental findings. Our results suggest that the geometry of the partial confinement is of primary importance; turbulence-producing obstacles can cause acceleration in the flame front and, what is more important, can cause a faster burnout of the combustible vapor.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (USA)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 5264025
- Report Number(s):
- UCRL-87088; CONF-820801-10; ON: DE82016774
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
030800 -- Natural Gas-- Environmental Aspects
034000* -- Natural Gas-- Combustion
090110 -- Hydrocarbon Fuels-- Properties-- (1979-1989)
10 SYNTHETIC FUELS
AIR
ALKANES
BENCH-SCALE EXPERIMENTS
CHEMICAL REACTIONS
COMBUSTION
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
DATA
DISPERSIONS
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
FLAME PROPAGATION
FLUIDS
GAS SPILLS
GASES
HYDROCARBONS
INFORMATION
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MIXTURES
NUMERICAL DATA
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
OXIDATION
PROPANE
THERMOCHEMICAL PROCESSES
VELOCITY