Gas explosion prediction using CFD models

A number of CFD models are currently available to model gaseous explosions in complex geometries. Some of these tools allow the representation of complex environments within hydrocarbon production plants. In certain explosion scenarios, a correction is usually made for the presence of buildings and other complexities by using crude approximations to obtain realistic estimates of explosion behaviour as can be found when predicting the strength of blast waves resulting from initial explosions. With the advance of computational technology, and greater availability of computing power, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tools are becoming increasingly available for solving such a wide range of explosion problems: A CFD-based explosion code-FLACS can, for instance, be confidently used to understand the impact of blast overpressures in a plant environment consisting of obstacles such as buildings, structures, and pipes. With its porosity concept representing geometry details smaller than the grid, FLACS can represent geometry well, even when using coarse grid resolutions. The performance of FLAGS has been evaluated using a wide range of field data. In the present paper, the concept of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and its application to gas explosion prediction is presented. Furthermore, the predictive capabilities of CFD-based gaseous explosion simulators are demonstrated using FLAGS 1) . Details about the FLACS-code, some extensions made to FLACS, model validation exercises, application, and some results from blast load prediction within an industrial facility are presented.