If the general public is to use hydrogen as a vehicle fuel, customers must be able to handle hydrogen with the same degree of confidence, and with comparable risk, as conventional liquid and gaseous fuels. Since hydrogen is stored and used as a high-pressure gas, a jet release in a confined or congested area can create an explosion hazard. Therefore, hazards associated with jet releases from leaks in a vehicle-refuelling environment must be considered. As there was insufficient knowledge of the explosion hazards, a study was initiated to gain a better understanding of the potential explosion hazard consequences associated with high-pressure leaks from hydrogen vehicle refuelling systems. Our first paper [1] describes the release and subsequent ignition of a high-pressure hydrogen jet in a simulated dispensing area of a hydrogen vehicle refuelling station. In the present paper, an array of dummy storage cylinders with confining walls (to represent isolation from the forecourt area) was used to represent high-pressure hydrogen cylinder storage congestion. Experiments with ignition of premixed 5.4 m × 6.0 m × 2.5 m hydrogen-air clouds and hydrogen jet releases up to 40 MPa pressures were performed. The results are presented and discussed in relation to the conditions giving the highest overpressures. We concluded from the study that the ignition of a jet release gives much higher local overpressure than in the case of ignition of a homogeneous mixture inside the cylinder storage congestion area. The modelling of these results will be presented in Part 2 of this paper.

如果公众要使用氢作为车用燃料，则客户必须能够以与常规液体和气体燃料相同的置信度和可比的风险处理氢。由于氢气被存储起来并用作高压气体，因此在狭窄或拥挤的区域中释放射流会产生爆炸危险。因此，必须考虑与在车辆加油环境中泄漏引起的喷气释放相关的危险。由于对爆炸危险的认识不足，因此开始了一项研究，以更好地理解与氢车辆加油系统的高压泄漏相关的潜在爆炸危险后果。我们的第一篇论文[1]描述了在氢燃料汽车加油站的模拟分配区域中高压氢射流的释放和随后的着火。在本文中，使用带有围壁的虚拟储气瓶阵列（代表与前庭区域的隔离）来代表高压氢气瓶储气量。进行了预混合的5.4 m×6.0 m×2.5 m氢-空气云点火和高达40 MPa压力的氢喷射释放的点火实验。给出和讨论的结果与给出最高超压的条件有关。从研究中我们得出的结论是，与在气缸存储拥挤区内点燃均质混合物的情况相比，喷射器的点火产生的局部超压要高得多。