Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Measurement and Control of Granular Materials (MCGM 2009) Flame Propagation through Potato Starch/Air Mixture in Pipe of Interconnected Vessels ‘Wang Jian', Li Xinguang', Zhong Shengjun’, S. Radandt’, Wang Fuli', Ren Chunti! 1. School of Information Science and Engineering, Northesstem University, China 2. ‘School of Materials and Metallurgy, Northeastern University, China No.11, Lane 3, Wenhus Road, Heping District, Shenyang, 110004 China 3. Research Centre for applied System Safety (FSA), Germany Tel. & Fax: + 86-24-23891977, wangiian. 1976@yshoo..com.cn Abstract; Flame propagation through pipes of potato starch dust explosions in interconnected veseel wes investigated by ‘experimental end numerical epprozches. ‘The purpose ofthis research isto investigate the mechanism governing the accel- ration of flame propagation through long pipe and thereby to provide valuable information for sefety protection and de- sign, The experimental equipment consists of two vessels linked by a long pipe. Explosions were initiated in one vessel and propagated to the other vie the pipe. ‘The Eulerian-Lagrangian approach was used for modeling propagation of dust explo sions. The J-e model was used to simulate the turbulence of the gas phase. In the particle combustion model, vaporization cof water, decomposition of wolatile, ss phase reaction and perticle's surface reecton were taken into account. The EBU- Archenius model was used for gas turbulent combustion. The operator split method and FCT algorithm were pied for ‘numerical simulation. The acceleration of flame propagation was relatively well represented in the simulation. The devel- coped model is valuable for investigating flame propegation mechanisms of dust explosions. ‘Keywords: Dust explosions, Flame propegation, Long pipe, Numerical simulation, Potato starch Introduction “The dust explosion hazard continues to representa con- stant threat to process industries that manufacture, use and/ for handle powders and dusts of combustible materials") the process industry there are many applications where pro- cess vesels with explosion potential are connected via pipes to other systems and the behaviors of accidental explosions in sich systems is practically unpredictable, The question of dust explosions in large-scale linked equipments has been much less investigated « probable reason isthe difficulty and ‘high costs of such experiments. Imporcant conteibutions are al In those from some researchers!41. Now that experimental in- ‘vestigation into explosions in connected vesels is not an exsy task, another solution is the use of mathematical modeling tulates the problem using a CFD code'* ®, They are szsining increased interest and it is likely that in the near fu- 7 and ture they will become the main source of information! Tn present research, we investigated flame propagation ‘through pipes of dust explosions in interconnected vessel by experimental and numerical approaches. The aim is to inves- tigate the mechanism governing the acceleration of flame propagation through long pipe and thus to provide valuable information for safety protection and design. Moreover, an- ‘other purpose is to improve and perfect the present numerical ‘model by experimental validation, 1. Experimental investigation 1.1 Experimental setup ‘The experimental setup is shown schematically in 1. A pneumatic conveying system was used consisting of 1 primary vessel with 963m’ volume, connecting pipe 29.3m in length and 0.3m in inner diameter, a secondary vessel with 4.4m! volume, cyclone and a suetion fan for establishing the air flow. Ten Flame detectors and two pres- sure transducers were located along the pipe. These were connected to dats soquisition system 10 obtain transient re sults. The characteristics of potato starch are listed in Tab.1. ‘Tab-A_Muin parameters of potato starch we in experiment Eaploon characterises Fd ese Moire Ka(tarsmes!) Pal bat) Deel pons 130 9 In the experiments steady dust-ar flow of 16m/s veloe- ity was established and then suitable amount of potato starch ‘were injected into the primary vessel to produced dust cloud ‘with concentration of 1350g/m’, after 1.158. suitable ‘amount of potato starch were injected into the secondary ves- sel to produced dust cloud with concentration of 750g /en ‘The dust-air mixture in the primary vesel was then ignited in the center of the vessel after 0. 15s using pyrotechnic ig- niters with ignition energy of 10kI. <4Flame Propagation through Potato Starch/Air Mixture in Pipe of Interconnected Vessels 377 Primary vend Sccoary vowel (9.63m", vented) (44? ened) Pe oo ee: FS T TF, Fans Ft wes epition PLVIA, PLVL2: reste tansdicer P.V2A, PLV2.2; Prewure tense Cyelone ig.1 Schematic of the experimental setup 10 1.2. Experimental results 7 — Experimental pressure development in the interconnect= 7 cd vessel system are shown in Fig.2, which clearly indicated 10 ; —Premirs 04 that the primary explosions transmitted into the secondary 9,5} Pee(25.37m) ha = Flame fone 499 & ‘vessel successfully via flame propagation through connecting Fool al oof pipe and induced a violent secondary explosions. Experimen- BOT peta. atm J Tene AA and 0.83bar in primary vessel and secondary vessel, respec- era tively. And explosion index Ky, was 20.83(bar' mes!) and o.sh Pie vee 65.02(bar*m's"") for primary vessel and secondary vessel, ff respectively. Experimental Py, is 0.82bar and 0.91bar at Ls da 1S Le 17 18 19 20 22.57m and 24.47 postion, respectively. it indicated that eas the explosions have developed into « much violent extent at ‘ig.2 Experimental prsare development nthe inerconesed ves the end of flame propagation. soqeem FFig.3 shows the results of flame propagation through From Fig.3 the auto acceleration of flames in connecting connecting pipe for potato starch/air mixture. The flame Pipe can be clearly recognized. Towards the end of the com- ‘rajectories are deduced from flame front sensor records. bustion the flame front velocity is up to about 338m/s. 20 Fea Fame Taj 0.3 a3 3 a a 00 0.3 o3 03 68 2» os £ 2 og 0 3 @ 5 o.3 + na Time/s ig.3. Hxperimental flame trajectory378 Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Measurement and Control of Granular Materials (MCGM 2009) 2. Mathematical model Currently there are two approaches for the numerical calculation of multiphase flows: the Bulerian-Eulerian ap- proach and the Eulerian-Lagrangian approsch. ‘The Eulerian Lagrangian approach is used in this paper. 2.1 Gas phase equations oP yacay, tye V+ a Heels y(apf)= Vion + VFM, (2) 2408) + 9 (gpiB)= ~V-Capit-V-U,+1,)+ vG DHE, = a90,9 ¥,= -e9( D424) v¥ aol ty)| a+ (Va -2 9-8 - [a+ es CO) =-(S2r}or o ‘The turbulence model adopted widely used te model and the kinetic turbulent viscosity is got by: = ole (8) 2.2. Particle phase equations «) (10) qa) «, MC Gz tAWAAA A+ A, — (12) where Fam peaend it wi) arw (a3) 2.3 Combustion model ‘The chemical structure of potato starch is rather com- plicated; the chemical formula of the main composition in potato starch is (Cig), The reaction mechanism of potato dust is not clear yet. ‘The combustion process of pota~ to starch consists of the following stages: + water vaporization from the particle + volatile decomposition from the particle + volatile combustion in the gas phase + surface reaction of the particle All of the above-mentioned processes are taken into ac- count in the combustion model. Water vaporization is mod- led using the droplet vaporization model. Two-equation ‘method is used to model particle devolatlization process. It is assumed that CH, and CO extracted from volatile and CO ‘generated by surface reaction of solid carbon combusting with ‘oxygen in the gas phase and the EBU-Archenius model is ‘used for modeling gas turbulent combustion. The main reac- tions of particle surface are considered as follows: c#0,50,-*0c0 aay c+ 00,200 (as) ‘An extension form of “Single Reaction Theory” is used to describe the resction rates of the above reactions. Details of combustion model used here are presented in literature!) 3. Numerical simulation ‘The system considered in the numerical simulation is shown schematically in Fig.4. A dustair mixture flows through a straight tube and is ignited at left end. Limited 10 the available computational resources, vessels connected 10 both end of the long pipe are not included in the model. In the numerical simulation, the ignition end and exit end were treated as inflow and outflow boundaries respectively. A jet flame of 1m length with 0. Sbar pressure is introduced in the left boundary. jc me iw ution <—_—- Bane fon ig. Schematic representation of america simlaton Operator splitting method” is used to solve the conser~ vation equations of gas and particle phase. Flux Corrected ‘Transport(FCT) scheme!” is used to solve the convective parts of the governing equations, and implicit scheme is used to solve the diffusion parts. The source items are solved us- ing an anti-stff ordinary equation solver!!! 4. Numerical results and discussion The time histories of numerical pressure at different lo- cations along the tube are shown in Fig.S, which indicated the development of pressure waves due to flame acceleration while propagating through the connecting pipe. Compared ‘with Fig.2, the agreement between the shape of the calcu lated and measured curves is reasonable and the entire pro- cess of combustion is well predicted. Its shown from Fig.5 that close to the ignition loca tion only a small and slow pressure rise is observed. With in- creasing distance from the ignition location the rate of pres- sure rise increases and the maximum pressure reaches higher levels. The numerical simulation shows @ pressure maximum.Flame Propagation through Potato Starch/ Air Mixture in Pipe of Interconnected Vessels 379 —— 0.3) 26.37%m — Bizet AL. 3 a 08 sg i Sos) asm $3 18 eI 1a a oe er ea 03S Time! ig-5 Caleulated presure Msiary along pipe and measured resare history a wo locaton ‘which is moving downstream and becoming narrower with higher peak values. The location of this maximum coincides ‘with the pronounced pressure rise observed in the experi- ment. Fig.6 shows the comparison of calculated and measured flame trajectory in the connecting pipe. Experimental data are denoted as symbols, data from the numerical simulation ‘as continuous curves. From Fig.6, it is evident hat flame velocity become faster and faster along the pipe, the caleulat~ fed maximum flame speed is aboot 330m/s, the simulation results is similar to that of experiments. Early in the com- bustion process there are some differences between simulation and experiment. For later times closer to the end of the tube the numerical curves are in good agreement with the mea- sured results. 30 — Experiment 1 2s A. Experiment 2 20 15 Distance 14 Ls 16 17 Time/s ig-6 Comparison of calculated and measured flame trajectory ‘in comectng pipe Compared comprehensively from Fig.5 and Fig.6, the simulation results reproduced experimental results compara tively well and both of them are in reasonable agreement. 5. Conclusion ‘The experimental results indicate that, for linked ves- sels, dust explosions initiated in primary vessel can translate into the other vessel vin connecting pipe and cause subse- aqent severely secondary explosions. ‘Therefore, safety pro tection measures, such as explosion disengagement or explo- sion interruption must be taken to prevent other equipment from being affected by the explosion in such equipments And, understanding of underlying mechanism for flame propagation is essential for safety protection and design. ‘A numerical model was applied to the study for flame propagation in the connecting long pipe. ‘The comparison of ‘numeri and experimental results showed that simulation result captured major characteristis of flames propagation in long pipe and simulated results are in good agreement with experimental results. The present numerical mode s good in tue for investigation of flame propagation through long pipe ‘And the code should be extended so thet such model would then allow simulations of dust explosions in equipment with complex geometries. Nomenclature Latin leters eq drag, coefficient C, specific heat capacity of constant pressure, J/ (hg K) ¢, Roseland mean absorption coefficient constant used in ke model 1D, mass teaser diffusion coefficient of 5 th specie, re?/s diameter of a particle, m E- specific mixture eneray, J/kgs activation enerey, Imo ‘energy flux from particulate phase, J/(m’+s) & energy flux from a particle, J/s Fy drag force, N G gravity acceleration constant, kg+m/s* T I, anit tensor of second order f, Heat flux of thermal conduction in gas phase [, Mass diffusion flux, kg/(m*+s) 1, Heat fax of thermal radiation Jy heat flux due to heat transfer, J/(m?+s) ‘k kinetic turbulent energy, J/kg J momentum fx from a particle kgsm/s? 'M, momentum flux from particulate phase, kag (m’ 2 ‘m_—mass of a particle and its composition, kg pressure, Pa Pr Prandt number, 0.7 Q rate of heat transfer, J/(s'm')380 Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Measurement and Control of Granular Materials (MCGM 2009) S, net mass flux from particle phase, kg/(m'+s) T temperature, K ii velocity vector of gas phase, tw, net reaction rate of sth specie in gas phase, kka/(m?+s) position of « particle, m Y, mass fraction of sth specie in gos phase rook lettors volume fraction of gas phase density of gas, kkg/m* stress tensor of second order, N/m? thermal conductivity coefficient, J/(s+m*K) Prandt/Schmidt number 24 Stefan Boltamann constant, 5.67 x 107° J/ (srm?+K*) 1 dynamic viscosity, ka/(m+s) » kinetic viscosity, m?/s © turbulent energy dissipation rate, J/(lg*s) Superseripts T matrix transpose rate of change fluctuation of a parameter Subscripts ‘carbon laminar properties particle properties radiation, radius species index turbulent properties, volatile water surface reaction convective radiation agregar erene References i 2 l (4 (51 (6) i} (8) (3 (10) on Edkbolf, RK, Carrent status and expected facure trends in| ust explosion research, Journal of Los Prevention in the Process Industries, 2005, 18(4-6): 225-237, Lunn, G-A., et ale, Dust explosions in totally enclosed in rerconnected vessel systems, Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries, 1996, 9(1): 45-58, Holbrow, P., Andrews, S., and Lunn, G.A., Dust explo sions in inteconected vented vessels, Journal of Loss Preven- tion inthe Process Industries, 1996, 9(1): 91-103 Roser, M., etal, Investigations of flame front propagation between interconnected process vexsels. 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