Process Safety and Environmental Protection, Vol.110, 5-14, 2017
Experimental investigation and CFD modelling of the internal car park environment in case of accidental LPG release
The use of new fuels (hydrogen, LPG) in daily life and industrial sites introduces new hazards which require new safety concepts. Despite the fact that LPG is used in a large number of cars, large-scale tests of accidental LPG release in the car park have not previously been performed. The problem of LPG-powered vehicles in enclosed car parks was previously evaluated only by CFD analyses. This paper describes full scale tests, which represent conditions that may occur in a garage in the event of accidental LPG release from a car's LPG installation. Over the course of the tests full scale LPG spillage experiments were performed to study emission time and flammable cloud formation according to the assumed hole diameter in the car's installation. On the basis of them, the characteristics of dispersion of LPG in the garage were obtained. The test results were used to create the appropriate CFD model of LPG release and dispersion in FDS code (NIST). The CFD model was used for a case study of the LPG release from the entirety of the car's tank in the full scale car park where the different effectiveness of various ventilation systems were observed and evaluated. (C) 2016 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.