A new method for comparison thermal radiation on large-scale hydrogen and propane jet fires based on experimental and computational studies

Abstract Jet fires consequences are one of the important factors responsible for catastrophic events in process units. The predicted values for incident radiation are validated for a propane jet fire at three horizontal distance points. In the current work, vertical propane and hydrogen jet fires are simulated using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Shear Stress Transport (SST), Eddy Dissipation Concept (EDC), and Monte Carlo models are used for turbulence, combustion, and radiation, respectively. The simulation results indicated that the predicted incident radiations had minimum and maximum absolute average range errors of 5.07% to 11.48% for the propane jet fire. Comparisons between propane and hydrogen jet flames are also developed. A hydrogen jet fire is simulated and compared with the propane jet fire data, under the same conditions (i.e., fuel velocity, nozzle diameter). The jet flame height of the propane is 2.5 greater than that of the hydrogen jet flame. The axial radiation rate of hydrogen jet fire is 3.5 times lower than that of the propane under the same conditions. The predicted incident radiations around the jet fire for both fuels are almost the same for distances about 5 m. It is vital to simulation the jet fires using CFD for congested areas.