Experimental and Numerical Study of Natural Gas Leakage and Explosion Characteristics

Frequent occurrence of indoor natural gas explosion accidents seriously threatens the safety of people and property. To determine the law of indoor natural gas leakage and explosion hazards, based on experiment and simulation, the nature of natural gas explosion, the distribution law of natural gas volume fraction, flame propagation, temperature, and shock wave overpressure were studied. The results show that the flame structure can be divided into three zones, i.e., preheat zone, reaction zone, and product zone. OH + CO ⇔ H + CO₂ is the main exothermic reaction in the combustion process. The overall distribution law of natural gas volume fraction shows that the higher the position, the greater the volume fraction, and the closer the distance to the leak source at the same height, the greater the volume fraction, and the natural gas volume fraction of the hose falling off is the largest under different leakage conditions. The difference in the wrapping structure of the kitchen package has a significant impact on the diffusion distribution of natural gas. The flame development goes through five stages of ignition, slow burning, detonation, slow burning, and extinguishing. The indoor temperature reaches about 1400 °C. Although the simulated value of shock wave overpressure is larger than the experimental value, the relationship between overpressure and distance is expressed by Y = A + B * ln(X + C). This study can provide certain technical support for natural gas accident rescue. The research can provide certain technical support for natural gas accident rescue and can also be used for accident investigation to form the determination procedure and method of leakage location and leakage amount.