Modelling heat and mass transfer during liquid hydrogen refuelling

Liquified hydrogen (LH2) is considered as the most practical storage method onboard heavy duty vehicles (HDV), trains, ships and planes in case of long distances. Currently there are no fuelling protocols for hydrogen inventory in excess of 10 kg when refuelling gaseous hydrogen. Modelling of fuelling of cryogenic hydrogen and LH2 transfer will pose even more challenges due to significantly lower temperatures and presence of two-phase flows with evaporation and condensation.

LH2 refuelling will require development of innovative safety strategies and engineering solutions for storage and transfer infrastructure, understanding of underlying physical phenomena, development and validation of contemporary Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and reduced engineering models and tools for safety design. The developed and validated LH2 transfer model will allow to run “numerical experiments” to get insight into underlying physical phenomena avoiding high costs, hazards and associated risks typical for large-scale experimental studies, and, on practical side, develop LH2 refuelling protocols.

The successful candidate will:

- critically review the state-of-the-art in safety of LH2 with focus on fuelling/refuelling,

- develop a CFD model to simulate LH2 refuelling for the entire hydrogen refuelling station (HRS) or bunkering station (from storage tank to onboard tank),

- validate the developed CFD model against experimental data available in literature or from partners in ongoing projects,

- use the validated model to support development of inherently safer fuelling/bunkering protocols,

- explore potential for development of reduced models to support further advancement of the e-Laboratory of Hydrogen Safety (https://fch2edu.eu/home/e-laboratory).