Extension of the Explosion Vent Analyzer (EVA): A Computational Model Predicting Explosion Parameters of Fuel Blends

Accidental explosions of flammable gases are risky for lives and properties, especially if such an explosion occurs within a confined space, because internal pressure builds up within the enclosure. Having a deep understanding of these explosions and their consequences will enhance developing mitigation strategies to prevent future explosions and reduce the impact of their consequences. Explosion venting is a conventional method to mitigate the consequences of explosions in enclosures, with the computational explosion vent analyzer (EVA) being a tool used for predicting both the peak and transient pressures generated from accidental gaseous explosions. While the EVA has been employed to gaseous one-compound fuels so far, exploding multi-compound fuel mixtures are usually dealt with in practice. Hence, there has been a critical need to extend the capabilities of the EVA to account for fuel-blend explosions. This is performed in the present work, incorporating the Cantera software into the EVA platform to compute the laminar flame speeds for various fuel blends. As a result, a model predicting both the peak and transient pressures in an explosion of gaseous fuel blends is developed. Such a modification of the EVA entailed simulating explosions of hydrogen and hydrocarbons as well as hydrocarbon fuel blends of various compositions in vented and closed enclosures, along with its validation through experimental measurements. The study further investigated the effect of various parameters on the predicted transient and peak pressures, and the simulation results can be used in the design of safety vents for confined spaces. For explosion of a hydrogen-methane-air mixture, the model works better when the fuel mixture has higher vol% of hydrogen and predicts the peak pressure more accurately at larger vent areas.