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Abstract

Safe transportation of natural gas, mostly in liquid form such as liquefied natural gas to international market is very important. In the case of exterior material contact to liquefied natural gas, intensive boiling and exploding should be anticipated. This paper investigates the thermo-physical contact between a single drop of water (0 ℃ as a fluid with higher temperature) with liquid methane, which is similar to liquefied natural gas, at a very low temperature (−162 ℃). Heat transfer between water drop and liquefied methane results in rapid pressure increase in a vapor film. It causes the generation and rapid growth of methane vapor film which is a result of abrupt evaporation and causes liquid methane explosion. In this situation, the intense vapor explosion phenomena endanger the safety of system. A mathematical model for these phenomena has been developed by assuming saturation condition on interface surface. Then, the effects of the variation of different thermo-physical parameters on the vapor film growth have been investigated. The results show that in some cases, the vapor pressure pulse created in the film can reach more than three times the initial pressure, which can endanger the safety of system.

Keywords

Liquid methane liquefied natural gas (LNG)water drop vapor film volatile liquid phase transition interface saturation state

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Thermo-physical investigation of the explosive rapid boiling during the contact of a single water drop with liquid methane

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