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ENERGY IN PRESSURE VESSELS
Energy released during burst of 50 WLC CNG Cylinder at 200 bar Pressure
CNG cylinder is a pressure vessel. It can fail in a catastrophic manner, releasing vastamount of stored energy by two ways, 1) shock wave 2) high-speed projectiles. High speed projectiles are the main threat and are primarily responsible for deaths, injuries and propertydamage in the case of failure of CNG Cylinder. However, shock wave is not to beoverlooked. During the inspection of burst vehicle cylinder i.e. Worthington NZS 5454, near Jehlum, it was found out that both of passengers sitting in the front seat of the car didn’treceive any major injuries from projectiles, but they died due to shock wave.Failure of CNG cylinder can only be disastrous if the cylinder do not comply to itsmanufacturing standard i.e. brittle fracture, non-compliance of burst profile, failure resultingin projectiles (burst into pieces) etc.
Theory:
Pressure×Volume → (Force/Area)×(Area×Length) = (Force×Length) (N-m) JouleHence, if we multiply Pressure (P) and Volume (V), we get energy; implying areaof PV graph represents energy. The SI unit of energy is Joule which is N-m.
Equation for Ideal Gas:
An Ideal gas obeys gas laws under all system conditions. The energy in a pressure vessel for Ideal gas can be calculated by finding area under the curve of PVdiagram through integration. Let us derive its formula using simple calculus.
Assuming PV = nRT (Ideal Gas Law) and P
1
V
1
=P
2
V
2
(Boyle’s Law) holds for CNG
Calculation for Ideal Gas:
Please note that we will first convert units into SI before applying formula.
Volume of 50 Water Liter Capacity (WLC) = 0.05 m
3
as 1000 WLC = 1m
3
Pressure of 200 bar = 200 × 100,000 Pascal or N/m
2
as 1 bar = 100,000 N/m
2
PV = 0.05 × 100,000 × 200 = 10
6
(1 million) ------------ (1)ln P
a
/P
b
= ln (200/1) = 5.298 (Note: Initial pressure P
a
is 200 bar; P
b
is 1 bar) - (2)
Result for Ideal Gas:
We multiply equation 1 and 2 to get energy in 50 WLC CNG cylinder at 200 bar.
Energy in 50 WLC CNG cylinder = 5.298 million Joules or 1.26 kg of TNT