A mechanistic analysis of H2O and CO2 diluent effect on hydrogen flammability limit considering flame extinction mechanism

Abstract

The released hydrogen can be ignited even with weak ignition sources. This emphasizes the importance of the hydrogen flammability evaluation to prevent catastrophic failure in hydrogen related facilities including a nuclear power plant. Historically numerous attempts have been made to determine the flammability limit of hydrogen mixtures including several diluents. However, no analytical model has been developed to accurately predict the limit concentration for mixtures containing radiating gases. In this study, the effect of H2O and CO2 on flammability limit was investigated through a numerical simulation of lean limit hydrogen flames. The previous flammability limit model was improved based on the mechanistic investigation, with which the amount of indirect radiation heat loss could be estimated by the optically thin approximation. As a result, the sharp increase in limit concentration by H2O could be explained by high thermal diffusivity and radiation rate. Despite the high radiation rate, however, CO2 with the lower thermal diffusivity than the threshold cannot produce a noticeable increase in heat loss and ultimately limit concentration. We concluded that the proposed mechanistic analysis successfully explained the experimental results even including radiating gases. The accuracy of the improved model was verified through several flammability experiments for H-2-air-diluent.