Effect of crack size on gas leakage characteristics in a confined space

We numerically investigated the influence of crack size on gas leakage characteristics in a confined space. The real scale model of underground Combined cycle power plant (CCPP) was taken for simulating gas leakage characteristics for different crack sizes such as 10 mm, 15 mm and 20 mm. The commercial code of Fluent (v.16.1) was used for three-dimensional simulation. In particular, a risk region showing such a probability of ignition was newly suggested with the concept of Lower flammable limit (LFL) of methane gas used in the present study to characterize the gas propagation and the damage area in space. From the results, the longitudinal and transverse leakage distances were estimated and analyzed for quantitative evaluation of risk area. The crack size was found to have a great impact on the longitudinal leakage distance, showing an increasing tendency with the crack size. In case of a crack size of 20 mm, the longitudinal leakage distance suddenly increased after 180 s, whereas it remained constant after 2 s in the other cases. This is because a confinement effect, which is caused by circulation flows in the whole space, increased the gas concentration near the gas flow released from the crack. The confinement effect is thus closely associated with the released mass flow rate changing with the crack size. This result would be useful in designing the gas detector system for preventing accidents in the confined space as like CCPP.