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.