Near field effects of small scale water bleve

Abstract

This paper presents preliminary results collected with a new experimental apparatus developed to collect close-in overpressure data from small scale water BLEVE. The apparatus consists of a sealed aluminium tube pressurized and heated up until rupture, representing a realistic pressure vessel failure. Various types of failure were obtained, from partial opening to catastrophic failure, giving detailed data on the blast overpressure, the load generated by the failure on the ground, and the transient pressure in the vessel. High speed imaging of the failure gives new insight to the close-in conditions of the explosive release. A CFD modelling work aimed to investigate the ability of CFD to model the blast pressure peaks from a pressurized vapour space. A shock tube configuration was selected, and a series of experiments were performed to provide experimental data. A very good agreement was observed which validates a first step in BLEVE simulation by CFD.