The Hydrogen Laminar Jet

Abstract

Numerical and asymptotic methods are used to investigate the structure of the hydrogen jet discharging into a quiescent air atmosphere. The analysis accounts in particular for the variation of the density and transport properties with composition. The Reynolds number of the flow "Rj", based on the initial jet radius "a", the density and viscosity of the jet and the characteristic jet velocity, is assumed to take moderately large values, so that the jet remains slender and stable, and can be correspondingly described by numerical integration of the continuity, momentum and species conservation equations written in the boundary-layer approximation. The solution for the velocity and composition in the jet-development region of planar and round jets, corresponding to streamwise distances of order "Rj a", is computed numerically, along with the solutions that emerge both in the near field and in the far field. The small value of the hydrogen-to-airmolecular weight ratio is used to simplify the solution by considering the asymptotic limit of vanishing jet density. The development provides at leading order explicit analytical expressions for the far-field velocity and hydrogen mass fraction that describe accurately the hydrogen jet near the axis. The information provided can be useful in particular to characterize hydrogen discharge processes from holes and cracks.