Numerical analysis of heat and mass transfer during absorption of hydrogen in metal hydride based hydrogen storage tanks

In this paper, hydriding in a cylindrical metal hydride hydrogen storage tank containing HWT5800 (Ti_0.98Zr_0.02V_0.43Fe_0.09Cr_0.05Mn_1.5) is numerically studied with a two-dimensional mathematical model. The heat and mass transfer of this model is computed by finite difference method. The effects of supply pressure, cooling fluid temperature, overall heat transfer coefficient and height to the radius ratio of the tank (H/R) on the hydriding in the hydrogen storage tank are studied. It is found that hydride formation initially takes place uniformly all over the bed and hydriding processes take place at a slower rate at the core region. Supply pressure, cooling fluid temperature and overall heat transfer coefficient play significant roles during the absorption of hydrogen. At the H/R = 2 both maximum bed temperature and the average bed temperature are the highest, and the hydride bed takes the longest time to saturate.