Quantitative risk analysis of a hazardous jet fire event for hydrogen transport in natural gas transmission pipelines

Abstract

With the advent of large-scale application of hydrogen, transportation becomes crucial. Reusing the existing natural gas transmission system could serve as catalyst for the future hydrogen economy. However, a risk analysis of hydrogen transmission in existing pipelines is essential for the deployment of the new energy carrier. This paper focuses on the individual risk (IR) associated with a hazardous hydrogen jet fire and compares it with the natural gas case. The risk analysis adopts a detailed flame model and state of the art computational software, to provide an enhanced physical description of flame characteristics. This analysis concludes that hydrogen jet fires yield lower lethality levels, that decrease faster with distance than natural gas jet fires. Consequently, for large pipelines, hydrogen transmission is accompanied by significant lower IR. Howbeit, ignition effects increasingly dominate the IR for decreasing pipeline diameters and cause hydrogen transmission to yield increased IR in the vicinity of the pipeline when compared to natural gas.