Study of Effect of Length-to-diameter Ratio on Overpressure Impulse Characteristics of Methane/Air Premixed Explosion

The study aims to investigate the explosion characteristics of methane/air premixed gas across various temperatures and ignition positions. Under winter and summer conditions, respectively, using a custom-designed methane/air premixed gas explosion test apparatus, tests are conducted with different aspect ratios for a variety of concentrations of methane/air premixed gas explosion test, systematically analyzes the influence of temperature, aspect ratio, and concentration of the premixed gas explosion on the overpressure peak and impulse characteristics of explosions. Furthermore, by utilizing magnitude analysis methods and data fitting techniques, the study identifies the primary factors influencing these overpressure peak and impulse characteristics, and proposes a corresponding approach. In conjunction with the process of magnitude analysis and data fitting, the main factors affecting the overpressure peak and impulse characteristics were systematically analyzed, leading to the development of prediction formulas for the overpressure peak and impulse of methane/air premixed gases. The results indicate that: (1) the trends of peak overpressure and impulse in relation to increasing L/D ratio are generally similar for a specific gas concentration. However, these trends differ between winter and summer temperatures. Specifically, at a gas concentration of 7.5%, both peak overpressure and impulse initially decreased, then increased, and subsequently decreased again under winter temperature conditions, while they continued to decline under summer temperatures. For gas concentrations of 9.5%, 11.5%, and 13.5%, both peak overpressure and impulse consistently showed a decline in both winter and summer temperature conditions. (2) The relationship equations for peak overpressure and impulse, concerning the L/D ratio and methane/air premixed concentration, were established using magnitude analysis and data fitting under winter temperature conditions. The theoretical data were compared with the experimental results to verify that the errors were within 15%. The overall data match well, which verifies its reliability, and can express the decay law of overpressure and impulse with the L/D ratio and gas concentration more intuitively, thereby facilitating the rapid prediction of overpressure peaks and impulses.