Numerical Simulations of Suppression Effect of Water Mist on Hydrogen Deflagration in Confined Spaces

Zhanjie Xu; Zhi Zhang; Alexei Kotchourko; Alexander Lelyakin

doi:10.58895/hysafe.22

Numerical Simulations of Suppression Effect of Water Mist on Hydrogen Deflagration in Confined Spaces

Hydrogen Safety

Volume 2 (2025): Issue 1

By: Zhanjie Xu , Zhi Zhang , Alexei Kotchourko and Alexander Lelyakin

Open Access

|Nov 2025

Abstract

Hydrogen safety issues are attracting increasing focus as more and more hydrogen-powered vehicles are going to be operated in traffic infrastructures of different kinds such as tunnels. Due to the confinement feature of traffic tunnels, hydrogen deflagration may pose a risk when a hydrogen leak event occurs in a tunnel, e.g., failure of the hydrogen storage system caused by a car accident in a tunnel. A water injection system can be designed in tunnels as a mitigation measure to suppress the pressure and thermal loads of hydrogen combustion in accident scenarios. The COM3D is a fully verified three-dimensional finite-difference turbulent flow combustion code, which models gas mixing, hydrogen combustion, and detonation in nuclear containment with mitigation devices, or other confined facilities like vacuum vessels of fusion and semi-confined hydrogen facilities in industry, such as traffic tunnels, hydrogen refueling stations, etc. Therefore, by supporting the European HyTunnel-CS project, the COM3D is applied to simulate numerically the hydrogen deflagration accident in a tunnel model, being suppressed by water mist injection. The suppression effect of water mist and the suppression mechanism are elaborated and discussed in the study.

References

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Articles in this issue

DOI: https://doi.org/10.58895/hysafe.22

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Language: English

Page range: 76 - 87

Submitted on: Jul 4, 2025

Accepted on: Nov 1, 2025

Published on: Nov 17, 2025

Published by: KIT Scientific Publishing

In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

Keywords:

confined space,

tunnel,

hydrogen deflagration,

hydrogen safety,

water mist,

hydrogen-powered vehicle

© 2025 Zhanjie Xu, Zhi Zhang, Alexei Kotchourko, Alexander Lelyakin, published by KIT Scientific Publishing
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Volume 2 (2025): Issue 1