MATHRYCE

Material Testing and Recommendations for Hydrogen Components under fatigue

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'The deployment of a large hydrogen infrastructure with societal acceptance relies on the development of appropriate codes and standards to ensure safety. While hydrogen infrastructures are gradually being built all over the world, there exist no international standard to properly ensure fitness for service of pressure vessels subject to hydrogen enhanced fatigue. For example, high pressure compressors and pressure buffers in FCV refuelling stations experience cyclic loading due to pressure variation. The MATRHYCE project aims to develop and provide an easy to implement vessel design and service life assessment methodology based on lab-scale tests under hydrogen gas. This methodology will be based on selection and further development of the most appropriate, reliable and easy to handle lab-scale test under hydrogen pressure to quantify the hydrogen induced fatigue of a material. The results shall be transferable, allowing to design a component and to assess its lifetime without full scale tests. At least three types of lab-scale tests will be carried out and carefully analysed to address the fatigue of pressure vessel steels without and under hydrogen pressure. The proposed rationale will be finally validated by means of fatigue tests under hydrogen pressure on full scale components. The obtained results and conclusions will allow prioritized recommendations to support ongoing or new RCS initiatives at the international level. Indeed, this project will provide data and methodology necessary to improve European and International standards on high-pressure components exposed to hydrogen-enhanced fatigue. The project aims to support and speed up the build of a safe and harmonised Hydrogen supply network in Europe.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

For the safe storage and transport of hydrogen, EU-funded researchers are studying hydrogen enhanced fatigue in order to propose a methodology considering this particular aspect for the design of high-pressure metallic vessels.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Hydrogen-powered fuel cells have emerged as a viable power source for personal transport. Because hydrogen used in fuel cells produces only water, electricity and heat, there are no polluting emissions and power can be efficiently produced to sustain everyday vehicles for kilometres. The challenge that hydrogen fuel cell technology faces today is infrastructure.

The first hydrogen refuelling stations have been built all over the world. But international standards to evaluate the fitness for service of high-pressure hydrogen vessels do not properly addressed hydrogen enhanced fatigue. The EU-funded project 'Material testing and recommendations for hydrogen components under fatigue' http://www.mathryce.eu/ (MATHRYCE) was initiated to fill this gap.

The project brings together world leaders in standards development and hydrogen production and storage. The Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission is also participating together with government organisations from three European countries. Project partners' efforts are aimed at the assessment of pressure vessels for high pressure hydrogen storage based on laboratory experiments.

MATHRYCE partners have so far reviewed existing codes and standards in order to identify their limits. They found that only recently, the high-pressure vessel codes of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the High Pressure Gas Safety Institute of Japan (KHK) addressed the effects of hydrogen on metal properties under cycling loading. In Europe, there are local codes developed and used in different countries, but not always considering fatigue loading under hydrogen pressure. However, several components of the hydrogen supply chain, such as high-pressure compressors and pressure buffers in hydrogen refuelling stations experience cyclic loading.

A combined numerical and experimental approach has been followed to contribute in filling this gap. Numerical simulations have been carried out to quantify stresses and hydrogen concentrations inside pressure vessels. The results will provide the most representative conditions for laboratory tests. At the same time a testing campaign has been set up including lab scale and full scale tests aimed at assessing the effect of Hydrogen on fatigue life.

The lab-scale specimen as well as the full scale pressure vessels have been manufactured from aCrMosteel with a tempered martensite and bainite microstructure. Although classically used to manufacture pressure vessels for hydrogen transport and storage, this steel is sensitive to hydrogen embrittlement. Under high hydrogen pressure cycling, cracks can initiate and grow within the lifetime of the tank. Thus, the MATHRYCE partners have developed test instrumentation to both detect fatigue crack initiation and measure its growth under cyclic loading.

Results of the tests under high hydrogen pressure will lay the groundwork for development of an easy-to-implement methodology to assess real-scale high-pressure vessels. The assessment will be based on solid knowledge of the influence of parameters, such as pressure and loading frequency, on hydrogen enhanced fatigue. At the end of the project, a methodology for component design will be proposed based on fatigue life obtained from lab-scale test results combined with data obtained by testing full-scale cylinders under cycling pressure.