Experimental study of flame propagation in semiconfined geometries with obstacles

Conference · Sun Feb 07 23:00:00 EST 1982

OSTI ID:5370595

Urtiew, P. A.; Brandeis, J.; Hogan, W. J.

Accidents in which large quantities of liquefied natural gas (LNG) or other combustible materials are spilled 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 one must rely on laboratory and field experiments of smaller size, scaling up the results to make predictions about larger spill accidents. In this paper we describe our laboratory-scale experiments with a combustible propane/air mixture in various partially confined geometries. We summarize the experimental results and compare them with calculated results based on numerical simulations of the experiments. Our observations suggest that the geometry of the partial confinement is of primary importance; turbulence-producing obstacles can cause acceleration in the flame front and, more important, can cause a faster burnout of the combustible vapor.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (USA)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-48
• OSTI ID: 5370595
• Report Number(s): UCRL-87088-Rev.1; CONF-820801-10-Rev.1; ON: DE82009407
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

03 NATURAL GAS
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