Development of blast curve for predicting peak overpressure from hydrogen pipeline burst.

Accidental burst of hydrogen pipeline can generate highly destructive blast wave, highlighting the importance of predicting the blast wave intensity for industrial safety and protection. However, current methods for predicting overpressure fail to consider the coupling effect between the blast wave and dynamic rupture. Therefore, a fluid-structure-rupture coupling model is constructed to address this limitation. The accuracy of the model is verified through a comparison of fracture morphology, crack propagation, and internal pressure decay between the simulation and experimental results. On this basis, the effects of dynamic rupture on blast wave formation and propagation, overpressure decay histories, and peak overpressure are investigated. Results indicate that the traditional CFD method tends to overestimate the peak overpressure in the near field while underestimating it in the middle and far fields. Furthermore, it is discovered that the blast waves from bursts of hydrogen pipelines with different diameters exhibit a consistent decay law under the same burst pressure by defining dimensionless distance and peak overpressure. Accordingly, the dimensionless blast curve is proposed for predicting overpressure from hydrogen pipeline burst with diameters ranging from 250 mm to 1000 mm and burst pressures ranging from 4 MPa to 12 MPa. The results can serve as a reference for the accurate and fast evaluation of blast wave intensity from hydrogen pipeline burst. • The proposed model effectively couples the dynamic rupture and blast wave. • Propagation of blast wave from hydrogen pipeline burst is quantitatively depicted. • Previous methods underestimate the peak overpressure in the middle and far fields. • Blast curve is developed to improve the prediction accuracy of peak overpressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]