Detailed examination of deformations induced by internal hydrogen explosions : Part 1 Experiments
Abstract
In industry handling hydrogen, explosion is feared because of its effects on people and property. In the nuclear industry, this explosion, which is possible during severe accidents, can challenge the containment and potentially release radioactive materials into the environment. The Three Mile Island accident in the United States in 1979 and more recently the Fukushima accident in Japan have highlighted the importance of this phenomenon for a safe operation of nuclear installations and also during accident management.
In 2013, the French Research Agency (ANR) launched the MITHYGENE project with the main aim of improving knowledge on hydrogen risk for the benefit of reactor safety. In this project, one of the areas of work concerned the effect of hydrogen explosions. In this context, CEA conducted a test program with its SSEXHY facility to build a database on deformations of simple structures following an internal hydrogen explosion. Different regimes of explosion propagation have been studied from detonation to slow deflagration. Different targets were tested, such as plates of variable thickness and cylinders. Detailed instrumentation was used to obtain data for the validation of coupled CFD models of combustion and structural dynamics.This article details the experimental set-up and the results obtained. A companion article focuses on the comparison between these experimental results and the prediction of CFD numerical models.
Origin : Files produced by the author(s)
Loading...