The leakage, low temperature diffusion and explosion of liquefied natural gas in open space

It is known that low-temperature is apt to cause skin frost bite and material embrittlement, and that the propagation law of gas explosion is the foundation of explosion evolution and accident analysis. In this paper, we investigated the process of extensive gas leakage, gas mixing with air and explosion of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) in open space using numerical simulation. The results show that, as the diffusion distance increases, the lowest possible fluctuating temperature (i.e. temperature valley) of LNG increases, and this tendency gradually slows down; that the temperature is below 273 K in the area within 110 m away from the leakage center; that the temperature valley decreases almost linearly as the wind velocity increases. As the leakage time gets longer, the temperature valley decreases, and so does its decreasing tendency. With the distance from the leakage center getting longer, the peak overpressure increases at first and then decreases. In the area within 200 m away from the leakage center, the high temperature produced by the explosion may pose a hazard to human casualties.