A CFD-based Approach to Predict Explosion Overpressure: A Comparison to Current Methods

C. Díaz-Ovalle, A. López-Molina and R. Vázquez-Román

Abstract
A CFD-based approach has been developed in this work to predict the overpressure produced during an explosion. An adiabatic exothermal reaction allows computing the explosion energy release. To validate the proposed CFD approach, overpressure predictions based on this methodology are compared with results produced with the TNO-based method. It is demonstrated that the physics adopted in our model produces satisfactory predictions in the open area. The CFD simulations were carried out in the ANSYS CFX tool. The source of energy corresponds to the one produced by a stoichiometric proportion in reactants without energy generation. The explosion analysis considered that explosion occurs geometrically as a sequence of control volumes. Thus, the explosion in a volume is assumed to occur when the maximum pressure is achieved in the previous control volume. This way, the explosion is propagated and it is shown that it is equivalent to conventional predicting methods.

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Keywords
CFD, explosion, overpressure, TNO method