Influence of gas compressibility on a burning accident in a mining passage. Issue 2 (4th March 2018) - Demir, Sinan
Abstract : A recent predictive scenario of a methane/air/coal dust fire in a mining passage is extended by incorporating the effect of gas compressibility into the analysis. The compressible and incompressible formulations are compared, qualitatively and quantitatively, in both the two-dimensional planar and cylindrical-axisymmetric geometries, and a detailed parametric study accounting for coal-dust combustion is performed. It is shown that gas compression moderates flame acceleration, and its impact depends on the type of the fuel, its various thermal-chemical parameters as well as on the geometry of the problem. While the effect of gas compression is relatively minor for the lean and rich flames, providing 5–25% reduction in the burning velocity and thereby justifying the incompressible formulation in that case, such a reduction appears significant, up to 70% for near-stoichiometric methane–air combustion, and therefore it should be incorporated into a rigorous formulation. It is demonstrated that the flame tip velocity remains noticeably subsonic in all the cases considered, which is opposite to the prediction of the incompressible formulation, but qualitatively agrees with the experimental predictions from the literature.