High pressure hydrogen fires

International audienceWithin the scope of the French national project DRIVE and European project HyPER, high pressure jet flames of hydrogen were produced and instrumented. The experimental technique and measurement strategy are presented. Many aspects are original developments like the direct measurement of the mass flow rate by weighing continuously the hydrogen container, the image processing to extract the flame geometry, the heat flux measurement device, the thermocouples arrangement. Flames were observed from 900 bar down to 1 bar with orifices ranging from 1 to 3 mm. An original set of data is now available about the main flame characteristics and about some thermodynamic aspects of hydrogen releases under high pressure. A brief comparison of some available models is presente