Volume 11 Issue 3 ( September 2024)

In response to the emissions reduction plan proposed by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), alternative fuels such as liquefied natural gas (LNG), hydrogen, and ammonia is gaining prominence. Hydrogen is one of alternative fuel due to its applicability in both direct combustion and fuel cells, which are more widely adopted. The potential risk associated with utilizing hydrogen as a fuel source lies in the possibility of equipment failure, leading to an uncontrolled release of flammable gas. In the occurrence of an ignition source, the consequences can be significantly more devastating as hydrogen combustion occurs in a supersonic flow, releasing a higher amount of energy. This paper aims to investigate the preliminary aspects of hydrogen fuel safety. An in-house Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) solver, OpenFOAM was employed, to simulate gas release scenarios: vapor cloud explosion (VCE). A gas cloud of 2.0 m3 was modeled in the numerical platform to predict the overpressure distribution in the surrounding. Finally, this paper presents and discusses the findings from the scenario, which was used as a justification for the safety of hydrogen facilities in the risk of an accidental gas release.

Keywords: gas leakage, hydrogen fuel, escape route, net zero emission, computational fluid dynamics