EFFEX : a tool to model the consequences of dust explosions
Résumé
Some accidents, such as the explosion of the silo in Blaye in August 1997, remind us that explosions of combustible dust can have serious consequences, not only for the industrial installations concerned but also for the environment. The necessity of being able to estimate the effects of an explosion of this type became apparent at the beginning of the 1990s. Owing to the complexity of this subject which involves the mechanical resistance of structures, flame propagation and fluid mechanics, etc., a simulation tool clearly had to be developed. It was in these circumstances that EFFEX was developed. EFFEX is not a software based on the discretization of space but it solves differential equations, each variable of which is considered to be a time function. This is therefore an "integral" type of software code. It is made up of a set of eight modules covering the characterisation of the explosion conditions, the estimation of the mechanical behaviour of the containment and the evaluation of the consequences. Comparison of the results for each of the main modules shows satisfactory consistency with available experimental results. Trials using EFFEX to simulate past accidents, including the transmission and reinforcement of the explosion between subsequent volumes, in order to verify the satisfactory linking of the various modules gave results that were similar to the actual consequences. Several tens of calculation were made so far on silo type of equipments and a synthesis is proposed in addition to a general description of the software.
Domaines
Sciences de l'ingénieur [physics]
Origine : Fichiers produits par l'(les) auteur(s)
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