Investigation and analysis for the use of ethane-oxygen gas explosion for industrial cleaning

Abstract

This research was supported by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) into the use of gas explosives as an alternative to solid explosives for slag removal in industrial cleaning applications. Solid explosives have been shown to cause damage to condenser pipes located within areas of the heat recovery steam generators where slag is present. The gas explosions investigated were a mixture of ethane and oxygen in three configurations of 100L bags. A series of tests were conducted at the Explosive Research Laboratory (ERL) in Idaho Springs, CO to determine if any damage would be caused to condenser pipes in proximity to the blast. Due to the successful demonstration of the gas explosions' viability for cleaning slag and not causing damage to the pipes, EPRI can continue the certification process to use this technology instead of solid explosive for industrial cleaning. The peak incident overpressure and duration of the positive pressure pulse were recorded as a function distance from the bags to characterize the detonation properties compared to that of solid explosives. The peak pressures at two meters and farther for the gas explosions were comparable to that of the solid explosives with no more than a 5 psi difference. The gas explosions demonstrated longer pulse durations than the solid explosives for all the tests. An Autodyne numerical model was then developed using TNT to compare to the experimental data, which showed good agreement at distances past three meters. However the numerical simulation was not able to capture the duration of the positive pulse as seen in the gas explosions. It was also shown that the gas explosions did not cause any damage to the condenser pipes in the experimental testing.