Simulation of 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 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 future to further improve the predictability of the calculations for arbitrary geometries and material combinations.

HEITSCH Matthias;  BARALDI Daniele;  MORETTO Pietro; 

2009-10-29

Serre Combe, Alain Benaouer, Philippe Poggi, Marco Carcassi

JRC51713