Unignited high-pressure methane jet impacting a cylindrical obstacle: An assessment tool for consequences analysis

In the Oil & Gas sector, the use of flammable substances stored and transported in gaseous form and under pressure conditions is quite common. In the field of industrial safety, high-pressure gaseous releases of a flammable material impacting an obstacle are of paramount importance, as possible accidental scenarios, due to their catastrophic consequences. Although hot release (i.e., jet fire scenarios) is a topic that has been largely covered in literature, cold releases (i.e., unignited flammable releases) did not. This gap increases when considering high-pressure cold releases interacting with an obstacle. Being a probable situation when an accidental high-pressure loss of containment occurs, the need of reliable as well as quick tools for prompt safety evaluations of the hazardous area of this kind of scenario is of primary importance. To this aim, the present work proposes such a consequences assessment tool derived from an extensive CFD analysis of several possible situations of a cylindrical obstacle impinged by an unignited high-pressure gaseous methane jet.