United States

An increase in the number of hydrogen-fuelled applications in the marketplace will require a better understanding of the potential for fires and explosion associated with the unintended release of hydrogen within a structure. Predicting the temporally evolving hydrogen concentration in a structure with unknown release rates leak sizes and leak locations is a challenging task. A simple analytical model was developed to predict the natural and force Read More

Hydrogen fuels are being deployed around the world as an alternative to traditional petrol and battery technologies. As with all fuels regulations codes and standards are a necessary component of the safe deployment of hydrogen technologies. There has been a focused effort in the international hydrogen community to develop codes and standards based on strong scientific principles to accommodate the relatively rapid deployment of hydrogen-en Read More

This document summarizes current hydrogen technologies and communicates the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy's (FE's) strategic plan to accelerate research development and deploymnet of hydrogen technologies in the United States. It also describes ongoing FE hydrogen-related research and development (R&D). Hydrogen from fossil fuels is a versatile energy carrier and can play an important role in the transition to a low- Read More

The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Global Technical Regulation (GTR) Number 13 (Global Technical Regulation on Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Vehicles) is the defining document regulating safety requirements in hydrogen vehicles and in particular fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs). GTR Number 13 has been formally adopted and will serve as the basis for the national regulatory standards for FCEV safety in North America (led by the United St Read More

The characterization of liquid hydrogen (LH2) releases has been identified as an international research priority to expand the safe use of hydrogen as an energy carrier. The elucidation of LH2 release behavior will require the development of dispersion and other models guided and validated by empirical field measurements such as those afforded by Hydrogen Wide Area Monitoring (HyWAM). HyWAM can be defined as the quantitative spatial and tempo Read More

On October 16-17 2012 the International Association for Hydrogen Safety (HySafe) in cooperation with the Institute for Energy and Transport of the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (JRC IET Petten) held a two-day workshop dedicated to Hydrogen Safety Research Priorities. The workshop was hosted by Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) in Berlin Germany. The main idea of the Workshop was to bring together stak Read More

The higher rate of component failure and downtime during initial operation in hydrogen stations is not well understood. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has been collecting failed components from retail and research hydrogen fuelling stations in California and Colorado and analyzing them using an optical zoom and scanning electron microscope. The results show stainless steel metal particulate contamination. While it is difficult to de Read More

The deployment of hydrogen technologies particularly the deployment of hydrogen dispensing systems for passenger vehicles requires that hydrogen components perform reliably in environments where they have to meet the following performance parameters:Perform safely where the consumer will be operating the dispensing equipmentDispense hydrogen at volumes comparable to gasoline dispensing stations in timeframes comparable to gasoli Read More

In order to face the coming shortage of fossil energies a number of alternative methods of energy production are being considered. One promising approach consists in using hydrogen in replacement of the conventional fossil fuels or as an additive to these fuels. In addition to conventional hydro-electric and fission-based nuclear plants electric energy could be obtained in the future using nuclear fusion as investigated within the framework of the ITER p Read More

Large-scale experiments examining spherical-flame acceleration in lean hydrogen-air mixtures were performed in a 64 m3 constant-pressure enclosure. Equivalence ratios ranging from 0.33 to 0.57 were examined using detailed front tracking for flame diameters up to 1.2 m through the use of a Background Oriented Schlieren (BOS) technique. From these measurements the critical radii for onset of instability for these mixtures on the order of 2–3 cm Read More

An experimental apparatus which was based on the ¼-scale garage previously used for studying helium release and dispersion in our laboratory was used to obtain effective diffusion coefficients of helium and hydrogen (released as forming gas for safety reasons) through gypsum panel. Two types of gypsum panel were used in the experiments. Helium or forming gas was released into the enclosure from a Fischer burner1 located near the enclosure floor for Read More

NFPA 2 Hydrogen Technologies Code allows the use of risk-informed approaches to permitting hydrogen fuelling installations through the use of performance-based evaluations of specific hydrogen hazards. However the hydrogen fuelling industry in the United States has been reluctant to implement the performance-based option because the perception is that the required effort is cost prohibitive and there is no guarantee that the Authority Havin Read More

HyRAM is a methodology and accompanying software toolkit which is being developed to provide a platform for integration of state-of-the-art validated science and engineering models and data relevant to hydrogen safety. As such the HyRAM software toolkit establishes a standard methodology for conducting quantitative risk assessment (QRA) and consequence analysis relevant to assessing the safety of hydrogen fueling and storage infrastr Read More

The potential for particulates entrained in hydrogen releases to generate electrostatic charge and induce electrostatic discharge ignitions was investigated. A series of tests were performed in which hydrogen was released through a 3.75-mm-diameter orifice from an initial pressure of 140 bar. Electrostatic field sensors were used to characterize the electrification of known quantities of iron oxide particulates deliberately entrained in the release. The ignitio Read More

Quantitative Risk Assessment (QRA) can help to establish a set of design and operational requirements in hydrogen codes and standards that will ensure safe operation of hydrogen facilities. By analyzing a complete set of possible accidents in a QRA the risk drivers for these facilities can be identified. Accident prevention and mitigation features can then be analyzed to determine which are the most effective in addressing these risk drivers and thus redu Read More

The permitting process for hydrogen fueling stations varies from country to country. However a common step in the permitting process is the demonstration that the proposed fueling station meets certain safety requirements. Currently many permitting authorities rely on compliance with well known codes and standards as a means to permit a facility. Current codes and standards for hydrogen facilities require certain safety features specify equipment m Read More

Metal hydride (MH) thermal sorption compression is an efficient and reliable method allowing a conversion of energy from heat into a compressed hydrogen gas. The most important component of such a thermal engine – the metal hydride material itself – should possess several material features in order to achieve an efficient performance in the hydrogen compression. Apart from the hydrogen storage characteristics important for every solid H stora Read More

The formation of elongated zirconium hydride platelets during corrosion of nuclear fuel clad is linked to its premature failure due to embrittlement and delayed hydride cracking. Despite their importance however most existing models of hydride nucleation and growth in Zr alloys are phenomenological and lack sufficient physical detail to become predictive under the variety of conditions found in nuclear reactors during operation. Moreover most mod Read More

Unintentional leaks at hydrogen fuelling stations have the potential to form hydrogen jet flames which pose a risk to people and infrastructure. The heat flux from these jet flames are often used to develop separation distances between hydrogen components and buildings lot-lines etc. The heat flux and visible flame length is well understood for releases from round nozzles but real unintended releases would be expected to be be higher aspect-ratio crac Read More

"This paper summarises the modelling and experimental programme in the EC FP6 project HYPER. A number of key results are presented and the relevance of these findings to installation permitting guidelines (IPG) for small stationary hydrogen and fuel cell systems is discussed. A key aim of the activities was to generate new scientific data and knowledge in the field of hydrogen safety and where possible use this data as a basis to support the recommend Read More

Rational decision making in land use planning and licensing of H2 infrastructure surrounded by other industrial activities and population should take account of individual and societal risks. QRA produces a risk matrix of potential consequences versus event probabilities that is shrouded in ambiguity and lacking transparency. NIMBY and conflict are lurking. To counter these issues risk analysts should therefore also determine the utilities of decision alternati Read More

The International Energy Agency's Hydrogen Implementing Agreement (IEA HIA) was established in 1977 to pursue collaborative hydrogen research and development and information exchange among its member countries. Information and knowledge dissemination is a key aspect of the work within IEA HIA tasks and case studies technical reports and presentations/publications often result from the collaborative efforts. The work conducted in hydroge Read More

This paper discusses the preliminary results of the Risk Management subtask efforts within the International Energy Agency (IEA) Hydrogen Implementing Agreement (HIA) Task 19 on Hydrogen Safety to develop uniform harm criteria for use in the Quantitative Risk Assessments (QRAs) of hydrogen facilities. The IEA HIA Task 19 efforts are focused on developing guidelines and criteria for performing QRAs of hydrogen facilities. The performance of QRAs req Read More

Hot surface ignition is relevant in the context of industrial safety. In the present work two-dimensional simulations with detailed chemistry and study of the reaction pathways of the buoyancy-driven flow and ignition of a stoichiometric hydrogen-air mixture by a rapidly heated surface (glowplug) are reported. Experimentally ignition is observed to occur regularly at the top of the glowplug; numerical results for hydrogen-air reproduce this trend and shed Read More

Determining the risk of accidental ignition of flammable mixtures is a topic of tremendous importance in industry and aviation safety. The concept of minimum ignition energy (MIE) has traditionally formed the basis for studying ignition hazards of fuels. In recent years however the viewpoint of ignition as a statistical phenomenon has formed the basis for studying ignition as this approach appears to be more consistent with the inherent variability in e Read More