The highly combustible nature of hydrogen poses a great hazard, creating a number of problems with its safety and handling. As a part of safety studies related to the use of hydrogen in a confined environment, it is extremely important to have a good knowledge of the dispersion mechanism.
The performed tests evaluated the influence of the initial conditions at the leakage source on the dispersion and mixing characteristics in a confined environment. Throughout the test, during the release and the subsequent dispersion phase, temporal profiles of hydrogen concentration are measured using thermal conductivity sensors within the enclosure. In addition, the BOS (Background Oriented Schlieren) technique is used to visualise the cloud evolution inside the enclosure. These instruments allowed the observation and quantification of the stratification effects.