The application of CFD software in the explosive hazardous area classification

The Main School of Fire Service, Faculty of Fire Safety Engineering, 52/54 Slowackiego St., 01-629 Warsaw, Poland

^* Corresponding author: akrauze@sgsp.edu.pl

Abstract

This article is devoted to the practical application of CFD Computational Fluid Dynamics software, as a tool helpful in the explosive hazardous area classification. The practical examples will be discussed, which show that use of computer software for the simulation of gas emissions or the simulation of vapors of flammable liquids, allows not only visualization, but also improvement the quality of following conclusions received during the explosive hazardous area classification. The Computational Fluid Dynamics is a branch of physics which deals with solving transport equations for given boundary conditions using numerical methods. The solution is found by dividing the analyzed space into a specified number of small control volumes (cells). At the same time, time period is divided into short steps. Then, for each of the cells at each time step, the transport equations are converted into the system of linear equations. Such systems are solved using appropriate numerical algorithms.