R&D at GexCon

Long-term commitment to research and development (R&D) is a prerequisite for delivering state-of-the-art consultancy services and software products within the field of technical safety in the process industries.

GexCon R&D

GexCon R&D specializes in the development, testing and validating of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software for practical applications. Rapid changes in technology, legislation and industry standards for best practice require continuous and dedicated R&D efforts. Our ambition is to generate new knowledge about complex phenomena related to fluid flow, as well as reliable simulation tools for industry, through computer modelling and continuous validation against experiments.

The main activities at the R&D department are:

• Development and maintenance of the CFD code FLACS
• Contract research related to technical process safety and renewable energy

From the year 2000, GexCon R&D continues the work on gas and dust explosion safety initiated at Christian Michelsen Institute (CMI) in the 1970s, and later taken over by Christian Michelsen Research (CMR) from 1990 to 2000.

FLACS Maintenance

GexCon R&D is constantly improving the user-friendliness of FLACS and extending the capabilities and range of application of the software.

Ongoing work on FLACS maintenance includes:

• Improved computer aided construction (CAD) capabilities in the pre-processor CASD
• Updates to graphical user interfaces (GUIs)
• Updated to the documentation (FLACS User’s Manual)
• Better handling of sloping terrain in FLACS
• Improved near field representation of flashing jets

Improvements that will become available in the future:

• Improved scenario menu that includes features that currently require text file input
• New presentation format and plotting engine in the post-processor Flowvis
• Enhanced performance of the numerical solvers in FLACS

Contract research

GexCon provides state-of-the-art contract research related to both advanced software development and experimental testing {GexCon Labs}. GexCon is classified as a small and medium enterprise (SME) under the definition used by the European Commission, and the company participates in research projects under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7).

GexCon R&D is involved in research projects on a broad range of topics:

• Release and dispersion of flammable and toxic material
• Explosion modelling, including gas, dust and mist explosions
• Fire modelling, with special emphasis on pool and jet fires
• Security issues related to blast wave propagation and risk assessment
• State-of-the-art risk assessments and consequence modelling in the process industry
• Hazards associated with emerging technologies for both conventional and renewable energy production: hydrogen safety, biofuels, solar panel production, vapour explosions (rapid phase transitions), production, storage and use of liquefied natural gas (LNG), carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), and more
• Renewable energy: optimal layout of wind farms

GexCon R&D has extensive experience from research projects sponsored by industry, and we also cooperate with many universities and research institutes around the world:

• University of Bergen (UiB)
• Kingston University (London)
• Dalhousie University (Halifax)
• Central Mining Institute (Katowice)
• Technical university of Warsaw
• FSA (Mannheim)

• INERIS (Paris) 

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