Hydrogen Detonation Analysis

Client – Hanford Waste Treatment Plant & Dominion Engineering, Inc.

As part of the Hydrogen in Piping and Ancillary Vessels (HPAV) program at Hanford Nuclear Waste Treatment Plant, Dominion Engineering, Inc. contracted Ripple Design to perform analysis of postulated hydrogen detonation events in process piping systems.Ripple Design’s engineers used specialized data processing software to analyze pressure and strain data from hundreds of detonation tests performed at Southwest Research Institute. From these data, we created pressure-loading methodologies to simulate the complicated pressure time-histories of different detonation events. Using these newly-developed pressure correlations, Ripple engineers performed dynamic ANSYS finite-element model simulations of the detonation events, comparing the analytically predicted strains to empirical results. This allowed Hanford WTP engineers to implement a process for evaluating the effects of different explosion events on plant piping and components.