Experimental and Simulation Study on Mitigation of Fire and Explosion Using Water Mist

There has been a great deal of interest in the use of water based explosion suppression systems, designed to mitigate or reduce the impact of thermal explosions and their consequential overpressures. Regrettably gas and vapour cloud explosions in gas pipe lines will always occur. For many sites (i.e., processing plants, refineries, oil and gas platforms) a high percentage of the risk regarding events leading up to an explosion can be reduced, simply by following appropriate design criteria. During this project, the use of water sprays in explosion suppression and mitigation will be studied in detail. Existing unique laboratory scale test equipment will be used to carry out explosion mitigation trials while slow and high speed deflagrations will be studies. CFD simulation will also be employed to optimise the process and modify the existing design.

Additional notes:

The successful applicant should have been awarded, or expect to achieve, a Bachelor’s degree (first or upper second class honours, or an equivalent qualification from an overseas institution) or a Master’s degree (with a 60% or higher weighted average) in a relevant subjects of Mechanical, Chemical, and/or Petroleum and Gas Engineering. Preferred skill requirements include knowledge/experience of spraying systems, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), high speed imaging, control systems, and programming.