Validation of scaling techniques for experimental vapor cloud explosion investigations

Within the project “MERGE”, an acronym for Modelling and Experimental Research into Gas Explosions, eight institutes from five different European countries co-operated to increase the understanding of vapor cloud explosions and to improve the sophisticated computerized prediction techniques that were, until this project, under separate development at several institutes. The objectives of the project were: to provide a consistent set of data on the influence of obstacles on flame propagation in initially quiescent mixtures at various geometrical scales; to improve, compare and validate numerical models for vapor cloud explosion simulation; to validate scaling techniques for explosion experiments; to investigate and to model jet explosions. The second item is discussed in this report.