Effect of a gas charge explosion at the closed end of a gas storage system

• Accidental detonation scenario in a gas storage warehouse.
• Multiple reflections of shock waves with the bottle crates located in gas storage infrastructure.
• Propagation of a Mach stem along the interior walls of the warehouse clearly showed.
• Good correlation between small scale experiments and simulation.

This study analyzes the propagation and reflections of regular Mach and shock waves through small-scale experiments and numerical modeling of an explosion in a gas storage plan. The gas storage area is a “U-shape” and contains two racks of 9 horizontal bottles (3 × 3) each. An explosive charge is located in a corner at the closed end of the system. The analyses of the shock waves and the effects of overpressure are conducted both inside and outside the plant.