Study on the Impact of Obstacle Structure on Hydrogen Explosion Resistance of Ripple-Type Flame Arrester

This article investigated the impact of obstacle parameters on the dynamic resistance process for preventing hydrogen explosion using a ripple flame arrester through visual experiments, and the corresponding influence laws and mechanisms were obtained. The pressure and velocity when entering narrow channels were greatly affected by obstacle number (N), spacing (L), and blockage rate (BR), thereby affecting the protection result. The impact of obstacles on the resistance effect was attributed to dual inhibitions of physics and chemistry. The elevation of obstacle parameters resulted in a notable enhancement in key explosion-resistant performance indicators. Moreover, the resistance effect of the ripple-type flame arrester shifted from effective interception to complete failure, and the probability of failure occurrence increased markedly. Notably, upon the occurrence of suppression failure, the dramatic acceleration of flame propagation induced a remarkable rise in explosion-related parameters located at the downstream side of the flame-resistant assembly. Besides, a predictive model was constructed to quantify the instantaneous flame resistance velocity under the coupling effect of different obstacle parameters through response surface fitting analysis. Additionally, the effectiveness of the model and the influence of various factors were verified through analysis of variance. The impact order was: the obstacle blocking rate > the obstacle spacing > the obstacle quantity.