Integration of Experimental Facilities: A Joint Effort for Establishing a Common Knowledge Base in Experimental Work on Hydrogen Safety

With regard to the goals of the European HySafe Network, research facilities are essential for the experimental investigation of relevant phenomena, for testing devices and safety concepts as well as for the generation of validation data for the various numerical codes and models. The integrating activity ‘Integration of Experimental Facilities (IEF)’ has provided basic support for jointly performed experimental work within HySafe. Even beyond the funding period of the NoE HySafe in the 6th Framework Programme, IEF represents a long lasting effort for reaching sustainable integration of the experimental research capacities and expertise of the partners from different research fields. In order to achieve a high standard in the quality of experimental data provided by the partners, emphasis was put on the know-how transfer between the partners. The strategy for reaching the objectives consisted of two parts. On the one hand, a documentation of the experimental capacities has been prepared and analysed. On the other hand, a communication base has been established by means of biannual workshops on experimental issues. A total of 8 well received workshops has been organised covering topics from measurement technologies to safety issues. Based on the information presented by the partners, a working document on best practice including the joint experimental knowledge of all partners with regard to experiments and instrumentation was created. Preserving the character of a working document, it was implemented in the IEF wiki website, which was set up in order to provide a central communication platform. The paper gives an overview of the IEF network activities over the last 5 years.