Assessment of CFD models for hydrogen fast filling simulations

High injection pressures are used during the re-fueling process of vehicle tanks with compressed hydrogen, and consequently high temperatures are generated in the tank, potentially jeopardizing the system safety. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tools can help in predicting the temperature rise within vehicle tanks, providing complete and detailed 3D information on flow features and temperature distribution. In this framework, CFD simulations of hydrogen fast filling at different working conditions are performed and the accuracy of the numerical models is assessed against experimental data for a type 4 tank up to 70 MPa.     

Numerical study on fast filling of 70 MPa type III cylinder for hydrogen vehicle

There will be significant temperature rise within hydrogen vehicle cylinder during the fast filling process. The temperature rise should be controlled under the temperature limit (85 °C) of the structure material (set by ISO/TS 15869), because it may lead to the failure of the structure. In this paper, a 2-dimensional axisymmetric computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model for fast filling of 70 MPa hydrogen vehicle cylinder is presented. The numerical simulations are based on the modified standard k − ? turbulence model. In addition, both the equation of state for hydrogen gas and the thermodynamic properties are calculated by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) database: REFPROP 7.0. The thermodynamic responses of fast filling with different pressure-rise patterns and filling times within type III cylinder have been analyzed in detail.     

CFD model performance benchmark of fast filling simulations of hydrogen tanks with pre-cooling

High gas temperatures can be reached inside a hydrogen tank during the filling process because of the large pressure increase (up to 70–80 MPa) and because of the short time (∼3 min) of the process. High temperatures can potentially jeopardize the structural integrity of the storage system and one of the strategies to reduce the temperature increase is to pre-cool the hydrogen before injecting it into the tank. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tools have the capabilities of capturing the flow field and the temperature rise in the tank. The results of CFD simulations of fast filling with pre-cooling are shown and compared with experimental data to assess the accuracy of the CFD model.     

Estimation of temperature change in practical hydrogen pressure tanks being filled at high pressures of 35 and 70 MPa

Some complete experimental data sets, not only on the hydrogen temperature within the tank during filling, but also on the supplied temperature and pressure from the station have been opened for analysis of the temperature change with time. The data were independently obtained for 6 different conditions and have been analyzed and checked to validate the Monde et al. model. It is found that the measured temperatures are well predicted using the software based on the model and the heat loss during filling with hydrogen is also well predicted, if a suitable heat transfer coefficient is adopted.     

CFD simulations of filling and emptying of hydrogen tanks

During the filling of hydrogen tanks high temperatures can be generated inside the vessel because of the gas compression while during the emptying low temperatures can be reached because of the gas expansion. The design temperature range goes from ?40 °C to 85 °C. Temperatures outside that range could affect the mechanical properties of the tank materials. CFD analyses of the filling and emptying processes have been performed in the HyTransfer project. To assess the accuracy of the CFD model the simulation results have been compared with new experimental data for different filling and emptying strategies. The comparison between experiments and simulations is shown for the temperatures of the gas inside the tank, for the temperatures at the interface between the liner and the composite material, and for the temperatures on the external surface of the vessel.     

Numerical investigations on the fast filling of hydrogen tanks

High-pressure storage of hydrogen in tanks is a promising option to provide the necessary fuel for transportation purposes. The fill process of a high-pressure tank should be reasonably short but must be designed to avoid too high temperatures in the tank. The shorter the fill should be the higher the maximum temperature in the tank climbs. For safety reasons an upper temperature limit is included in the requirements for refillable hydrogen tanks (ISO 15869) which sets the limit for any fill optimization. It is crucial to understand the phenomena during a tank fill to stay within the safety margins.The paper describes the fast filling process of hydrogen tanks by simulations based on the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code CFX. The major result of the simulations is the local temperature distribution in the tank depending on the materials of liner and outer thermal insulation. Different material combinations (type III and IV) are investigated.Some measurements from literature are available and are used to validate the approach followed in CFX to simulate the fast filling of tanks. Validation has to be continued in the future to further improve the predictability of the calculations for arbitrary geometries and material combinations.     

Experimental and numerical study on temperature rise within a 70 MPa type III cylinder during fast refueling

The fast refueling of hydrogen results in a temperature rise, which may lead to the failure of the hydrogen storage cylinder. Hence, study of temperature rise during refueling is a significant concern regarding hydrogen safety. In this research, a well-design system for 70 MPa hydrogen refueling was developed. Several refueling experiments on a type III cylinder have been conducted to study the temperature rise during the refueling process on this system. The experimental results show that the gas in caudal region and the aft domes junction surface achieved the maximum temperature rise. A Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model was also validated by the experimental results. Finally, effects of initial pressure and ambient temperature on temperature rise were studied using this model. The results show that with the increase of initial pressure and the decrease of the ambient temperature, the final gas temperature decreases approximately linearly. This pilot research can provide invaluable guidance in developing advanced refueling standard.     

Effects of some key-parameters on the thermal stratification in hydrogen tanks during the filling process

Computational Fluid Dynamics simulations are performed to investigate the effect of relevant parameters on the temperature field during the filling process of hydrogen tanks. The injector direction, the injector diameter, and the initial/ambient temperature affect the dynamics of the temperature distribution in the gas and in the tank material during the process. The development of potentially detrimental phenomena like thermal stratification and temperature inhomogeneity could occur, depending on the interactions of the effects of the 3 parameters. One of the most relevant findings is that, depending also on the other conditions, the injector direction can have a significant impact on the thermal stratification and on the critical parameters which provide an indication on the occurrence of stratification like the flow velocity at the injector exit and the Richardson number. The upward direction of the injector contributes to completely avert or at least reduce/delay the thermal gas stratification compared to injectors with a straight or downward direction.     

Acoustic emission characteristics of used 70 MPa type IV hydrogen storage tanks during hydrostatic burst tests

Currently, the periodic inspection of composite tanks is typically achieved via hydrostatic test combined with internal and external visual inspections. Acoustic emission (AE) technology demonstrates a promising nondestructive testing method for damage mode identification and damage assessment. This study focuses on AE signals characteristics and evolution behaviors for used 70 MPa Type IV hydrogen storage tanks during hydrostatic burst tests. AE-based tensile tests for epoxy resin specimen and carbon fiber tow were implemented to obtain characteristics of matrix cracking and fiber breakage. Then, broad-band AE sensors were used to capture AE signals during multi-step loading tests and hydrostatic burst tests. K-means ++ algorithm and wavelet packet transform are performed to cluster AE signals and verify the validity. Combining with tensile tests, three clusters are manifested via matrix cracking, fiber/matrix debonding and fiber breakage according to amplitude, duration, counts and absolute energy. The number of three clustering signals increases with the increase of pressure, showing accumulated and aggravated damage. The sudden appearance of a large number of fiber breakage signals during hydrostatic burst tests suggests that the composite tank structure is becoming mechanically unstable, namely the impending burst failure of the tank.     

JRC reference data from experiments of on-board hydrogen tanks fast filling

At the JRC-IET, on-board hydrogen tanks have been subjected to filling–emptying cycles to investigate their long-term mechanical and thermal behaviour and their safety performance. The local temperature history inside the tanks has been measured and compared with the temperatures outside and at the tank metallic bosses, which is the measurement location identified by some standards. The outcome of these activities is a set of experimental data which will be made publicly available as reference for safety studies and validation of computational fluid dynamics.     

Neural network based optimization for cascade filling process of on-board hydrogen tank

Compressed hydrogen storage is widely used in hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs). Cascade filling systems can provide different pressure levels associated with various source tanks allowing for a variable mass flow rate. To meet refueling performance objectives, safe and fast filling processes must be available to HFCVs. The main objective of this paper is to establish an optimization methodology to determine the initial thermodynamic conditions of the filling system that leads to the lowest final temperature of hydrogen in the on-board storage tank with minimal energy consumption. First, a zero-dimensional lumped parameter model is established. This simplified model, implemented in Matlab/Simulink, is then used to simulate the flow of hydrogen from cascade pressure tanks to an on-board hydrogen storage tank. A neural network is then trained with model calculation results and experimental data for multi-objective optimization. It is found to have good prediction, allowing the determination of optimal filling parameters. The study shows that a cascade filling system can well refuel the on-board storage tank with constant average pressure ramp rate (APRR). Furthermore, a strong pre-cooling system can effectively lower the final temperature at a cost of larger energy consumption. By using the proposed neural network, for charging times less than 183s, the optimization procedure predicts that the inlet temperature is 259.99–266.58 K, which can effectively reduce energy consumption by about 2.5%.     

Simulation and burst validation of 70 MPa type IV hydrogen storage vessel with dome reinforcement

The dome reinforcement (DR) technology was studied to reduce the amount of carbon fiber of the type IV hydrogen storage vessel in this paper. Firstly, the influence of the angle and thickness of the dome reinforcement part on the stress distribution of the dome section is studied by finite element analysis. Secondly, the weight reduction of carbon fiber composite layer is studied based on the dome reinforcement model. The strain-based Hashin progressive damage model is used to predict the burst pressure and burst mode with user-defined material subroutine (UMAT) of ABAQUS. Finally, the dome reinforcement technology is further verified in comparison with non-dome reinforcement by burst tests. The results show that the progressive damage model can effectively represent matrix cracking and fiber fracture, and the predicted burst pressure and mode is consistent with the test results. The fiber stress near the equator of the dome section affects the burst mode, and the smaller the angle of dome reinforcement parts, the better the reinforcing effect, and the dome reinforcement technology can help to improve the fiber damage state at the dome, transfer the maximum stress to the cylinder section of the vessel, and ensure the burst mode to be a safe mode. Also, it can help to reduce the consumption of carbon fiber by up to 5.5% in composite material.     

Acoustic emission-based damage characterization of 70 MPa type IV hydrogen composite pressure vessels during hydraulic tests

This paper aims to characterize the damage mechanisms of 70 MPa Type IV hydrogen composite pressure vessels using the acoustic emission (AE) method. First, AE signals were captured during the 0–105 MPa and 0–158 MPa hydraulic tests of two vessels using multi-step loading method. Second, the AE feature parameters in time-domain and frequency-domain such as amplitude, frequency, and energy are studied. A multi-parameter statistical analysis (MPSA) method based on empirical mode decomposition (EMD) and K-means algorithm is performed to cluster AE events for the vessels. Intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) are decomposed by EMD and three IMFs with high frequency are chosen to reconstruct the feature parameters and provide signal pre-processing for K-means clustering analysis. Based on the relationship between AE features and damage modes, three main clusters with separate amplitude, absolute energy, and energy are correlated to matrix cracking, fiber/matrix debonding, and fiber breakage damage mechanisms. Besides, the effectiveness of MPSA method for signal classification is validated by principal component analysis (PCA) and fast Fourier transformation (FFT) method. Finally, the AE feature parameters such as amplitude and counts to peak for the three main damage modes are studied for the hydraulic proof tests and the burst tests to explore the damage evolution behaviors of the vessels with pressure increasing. Results show that AE method can be reliably used to characterize damage evolution mechanisms in composite pressure vessels.     

Investigations of filling mass with the dependence of heat transfer during fast filling of hydrogen cylinders

Much attention has been paid to study the state of charge (SOC) during fast filling process. However, investigation on identifying the foremost factors and contribution of them to the filling mass is still an open issue. In essence, the contributing factors are multiple, of which, the most important factors can be found out by thermodynamical analysis. Based on the thermodynamical analysis and mass flow rate balance, some equations calculating filling mass and heat transfer are outstanding. The mass filling rate, the initial pressure in the cylinder and the inlet temperature of hydrogen are confirmed to be the utmost important factors influencing the filling mass. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model is established. The simulation results show the liner or inverse proportional relationship between filling mass and the three factors, hence, a formula for the final mass with diverse filling conditions is figured out. By means of studying the state of charge obtained by adiabatic and diathermal filling processes, a formula to investigate the heat transfer is proposed. Both the filling mass and heat transfer are coupled with the three factors. Therefore, the effect of heat transfer on filling mass has been investigated. It seems that the filling mass is dependent on the total heat transfer during fast filling.     

Three dimensional numerical computations on the fast filling of a hydrogen tank under different conditions

Hydrogen-fueled vehicles offer a clean and efficient alternative for transportation. Compressed gas in high pressure tanks is a popular storage mode for hydrogen fuel. Time required for filling a hydrogen tank for vehicular applications should be short. But quick filling of hydrogen tanks at high pressures can result in high gas temperatures which can damage the tank and lead to its rupture. Hence the real time monitoring of gas temperature is essential during filling. This paper reports the findings of numerical simulation of filling process of hydrogen tanks. Real gas effects are considered. Local temperature distribution in the tank is obtained at different durations of the fill. Effect of changes in ambient temperature and initial and inlet gas temperatures is studied. Results of the study can aid in optimizing the filling time and in identifying the most suitable locations for the feedback devices within on-board hydrogen tanks.     

Review on the research of hydrogen storage system fast refueling in fuel cell vehicle

A comprehensive review of the hydrogen storage systems and investigations performed in search for development of fast refueling technology for fuel cell vehicles are presented. Nowadays, hydrogen is considered as a good and promising energy carrier and can be stored in gaseous, liquid or solid state. Among the three ways, high pressure (such as 35 MPa or 70 MPa) appears to be the most suitable method for transportation due to its technical simplicity, high reliability, high energy efficiency and affordability. However, the refueling of high pressure hydrogen can cause a rapid increase of inner temperature of the storage cylinder, which may result not only in a decrease of the state of charge (SOC) but also in damages to the tank walls and finally to safety problems. In this paper, the theoretical analysis, experiments and simulations on the factors related to the fast refueling, such as initial pressure, initial temperature, filling rate and ambient temperature, are reviewed and analyzed. Understanding the potential relationships between these parameters and the temperature rise may shed a light in developing novel controlling strategies and innovative routes for hydrogen tank fast filling.     

Effects of geometry and inconstant mass flow rate on temperatures within a pressurized hydrogen cylinder during refueling

Higher refueling rate leads to higher temperature rise within the cylinder. Excessive temperature should be avoided during the refueling progress. In this paper, we studied the effective methods to control the temperature rise by simulations based on the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Cylinders of different length to diameter ratios and different inlet diameters were simulated. We found that smaller radio of length to diameter can boost for temperature control and temperature distribution. Larger inlet diameter can restrain temperature rise. Comparing the simulation results with constant, increasing and decreasing mass flow rate, the refueling with increasing flow rate obtains the lowest temperature rise.     

Effect of temperature on fast forging process of Mg-Ni samples for fast formation of Mg2Ni for hydrogen storage

Fast-Forging was used as a Severe Plastic Deformation technique to process Mg/Ni fine powder mixtures at a ratio corresponding to the eutectic composition. The samples were processed at different temperature, increased successively from room temperature up to above 500 °C. The one shock forging operation led to a reduction rate comprised between 80 to more than 90% depending of the applied temperature. Interestingly, a threshold temperature was pointed out for which amounts of the binary Mg₂Ni alloy were directly synthesized in increasing proportions when increasing temperature. A maximum amount of Mg₂Ni was synthesized according the nominal proportions at the highest applied temperature. Besides, numerical simulations were developed to consider and integrate to the forging process, the heat arising from the mechanical energy at deformation. Interestingly the total temperature at shock – heat applied to and heat developed in – indicates that the threshold temperature correspond well with the eutectic temperature as reported in the phase diagram. Early hydrogenation cycles suggest that both mechanical defects in brittle Mg and presence of amounts of Mg₂Ni as catalyst should be combined to optimize the hydrogenation characteristics.     

Comparative study of turbulence models performance for refueling of compressed hydrogen tanks

Compressed hydrogen gas is a popular mode of fuel storage for hydrogen powered vehicles. When hydrogen gas is filled at high pressure, the gas temperature increases. The maximum gas temperature should be within acceptable safety standards. Numerical studies can help optimize the filling process. There is a high level of turbulence in the flow as the high velocity inlet jet is penetrating the nearly stagnant gas in the tank. Selection of a suitable turbulence model is important for accurate simulation of flow and heat transfer during filling of hydrogen tanks. In the present work, a comparative study is performed to identify suitable turbulence model for compressed hydrogen tank filling problem. Numerical results obtained with different turbulence models are compared with available experimental data. Considering accuracy, convergence and the computational expenses, it is observed that the realizable k-ε model is the most suitable turbulence model for hydrogen tank filling problem.     

The ADREA-HF CFD code for consequence assessment of hydrogen applications

Application of the CFD methodology for risk assessment of hydrogen applications and associated support of regulation, codes and standards has been growing its momentum during the last years. The CFD tools applied should prove to be “adequately” validated for hydrogen applications. This contribution focuses on the hydrogen related validation work performed with the CFD code ADREA-HF. The code is a three dimensional transient fully compressible flow and dispersion CFD solver, able to treat highly complex geometries using the porosity formulation on Cartesian grids. The ADREA-HF validation effort was performed within various EC co-funded projects (EIHP, EIHP-2, HyApproval, HyPer, HySafe). Various types of hydrogen release scenarios were considered, including gaseous and liquefied releases, open, semi-confined and confined environments, sonic (under-expanded) and low momentum releases. In parallel to its validation the ADREA-HF code has been extensively used for regulations, codes and standards support.