United States

The FLACS CFD-tool for consequence prediction has been developed continuously since 1980. The initial focus was explosion safety on offshore oil platforms in recent years the tool is also applied to study dispersion hydrogen safety dust explosions and more. A development project sponsored by Norsk Hydro Statoil and Ishikawajima Heavy Industries (IHI) was carried out to improve the modelling and validation of hydrogen dispersion and explosions. In t Read More

When hydrogen gas is used or stored within a building as with a hydrogen-powered vehicle parked in a residential garage any leakage of unignited H2 will mix with indoor air and may form a flammable mixture. One approach to safety engineering relies on buoyancy-driven passive ventilation of H2 from the building through vents to the outside. To discover relationships between design variables we combine two types of analysis: (1) a simplified 1-D steady-stat Read More

In October 2004 the International Energy Agency Hydrogen Implementing Agreement (www.ieahia.org) approved the initiation of a collaborative task on hydrogen safety. During the past twelve months a work plan has been established and several member countries have committed to participate. Because of the nature of the International Energy Agency which is an international agreement between governments it is hoped that such collaboration will c Read More

The SAE Technical Information Report (TIR) J2579 (Technical Information Report for Fuel Systems in Fuel Cell and Other Hydrogen Vehicles) has been created to address the safety performance of hydrogen storage and handling systems on vehicles. Safety qualification of the compressed hydrogen storage system is demonstrated through performance testing on prototype containment vessels. The two performance tests currently included in the SAE J2579 for Read More

In recent years federal and state safety authorities have worked to bring emergency planners and responders together with industry the scientific community and consumers to ensure high levels of safety with gas and liquid pipelines and more recently with liquefied natural gas terminals. The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) is the federal authority on the safe transportation of energy and the National Association of State Fire Marshals (NASFM) repr Read More

Two key aspects of hydrogen safety are (1) incorporating data and analysis from research development and demonstration (RD&D) into the codes and standards development process; and (2) adopting and enforcing these codes and standards by state and local permitting officials. This paper describes work that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is sponsoring to address these aspects of hydrogen safety. For the first DOE is working with the automo Read More

The development of an infrastructure for the future hydrogen economy will require the simultaneous development of a set of codes and standards. As part of the U.S. Department of Energy Hydrogen Fuel Cells & Infrastructure Technologies Program Sandia National Laboratories is developing the technical basis for assessing the safety of hydrogen-based systems for use in the development/modification of relevant codes and standards. This work includes exp Read More

Storing a hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle in a garage poses a potential safety hazard because of the accidents that could arise from a hydrogen leak. A series of tests examined the risk involved with hydrogen releases and deflagrations in a structure built to simulate a one-car garage. The experiments involved igniting hydrogen gas that was released inside the structure and studying the effects of the deflagrations. The “garage” measured 2.72 m high 3.64 m wid Read More

Demonstrated safety in the production distribution and use of hydrogen will be critical to successful implementation of a hydrogen infrastructure. Recognizing the importance of this issue the U.S. Department of Energy has established the Hydrogen Safety Program to ensure safe operations of its hydrogen research and development program as well as to identify and address needs for new knowledge and technologies in the future hydrogen economy. Activitie Read More

In this perspective on hydrogen carriers we focus on the needs for the development of robust active catalysts for the release of H2 from aqueous formate solutions which are non-flammable non-toxic thermally stable and readily available at large scales at reasonable cost. Formate salts can be stockpiled in the solid state or dissolved in water for long term storage and transport using existing infrastructure. Furthermore formate salts are readily regenerat Read More