Enhancing safety of liquid and vaporised hydrogen transfer technologies in public areas for mobile applications

International standards related to cryogenic hydrogen transferring technologies for mobile applications (filling of truck, ship, stationary tanks) are missing, and the experience is limited or non-existent.

ELVHYS aims to provide indications on inherently safer and efficient cryogenic hydrogen technologies and protocols in mobile applications by proposing innovative safety strategies including selection of effective safety barriers and hazard zoning strategies, which are the results of a detailed risk analysis.

This is carried out by applying an inter-disciplinary approach and conducting experimental, theoretical, and numerical studies both on the cryogenic hydrogen transferring procedures and on the phenomena that may arise from the loss of containment of a piece of equipment containing hydrogen.

Unique investigations on (i) cryogenic hydrogen transferring operations for selected mobile applications, (ii) equipment and materials response to liquid hydrogen (LH2) transfer and incident roots, as well as (iii) releases, combustion and explosion phenomena will be pursued.

For the first time, a study on the frequency of failure of LH2 transferring equipment will be carried out by exploiting the internal databases of some of the consortium partners which contain valuable information collected in the last decades.

In addition, critical and exclusive data on innovative safety barriers (e.g. emergency release device) under development will be shared by Air Liquide partner, beyond knowledge on cryogenic hydrogen transfer gained in several years.

In this fashion, critical inputs can be provided for the development of international standards by creating safe and optimised procedures and guidelines for cryogenic hydrogen transferring technologies.

The results of ELVHYS will contribute to many objectives of the Clean Hydrogen JU SRIA such as increase the level of safety and support the development of regulations codes and standards for hydrogen technologies and applications.