HySEA

About the project

Improving Hydrogen Safety for Energy Applications (HySEA) through pre-normative research on vented deflagrations is a project supported by the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen 2 Joint Undertaking (FCH 2 JU) under the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation.

The aim of the HySEA project is to conduct pre-normative research on vented deflagrations in enclosures and containers for hydrogen energy applications. The ambition is to facilitate the safe and successful introduction of hydrogen energy systems by introducing harmonized standard vent sizing requirements. 

The partners in the HySEA consortium have extensive experience from experimental and numerical investigations of hydrogen explosions. The experimental program features full-scale vented deflagration experiments in standard ISO containers, and includes the effect of obstacles simulating levels of congestion representative of industrial systems. 

The project also entails the development of a hierarchy of predictive models, ranging from empirical engineering models to sophisticated computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and finite element (FE) tools.

Motivation

The extraction, conversion, storage, and utilisation of energy are foundational to the progress of modern societies and will continue to be vital in the foreseeable future. With the world's population expanding and living standards improving, the demand for energy resources is growing. Yet, as global fossil fuel reserves decline, the substantial release of carbon dioxide poses a considerable impact on the planet's climate. Therefore, there's an imperative need for a transformation in our energy infrastructure, emphasizing the increased adoption of renewable energy sources like wind, hydroelectric, and solar power, alongside more sustainable practices for traditional hydrocarbons, including carbon capture and storage.

In this context, both the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the European Commission (EC) anticipate that hydrogen will assume an increasingly crucial role as an energy carrier, delivering eco-friendly energy solutions. However, the widespread integration of hydrogen into society hinges on significant advancements in the realm of hydrogen safety. This discipline encompasses the scientific and engineering efforts to ensure the secure production, handling, and application of hydrogen across various industrial and societal contexts.

Hydrogen possesses several distinct properties that set it apart from conventional fuels, making it a unique and versatile element. Its characteristics, including the potential to cause metal embrittlement, a very low boiling point and density, a significantly low ignition energy, a wide flammability range, rapid combustion, and a propensity for deflagration-to-detonation-transition (DDT), present particular challenges when it comes to safety.

As a result, hydrogen installations, whether they are relatively straightforward systems like fuel cells, vehicles, or filling stations, or intricate industrial facilities like nuclear power plants, pose inherent fire and explosion hazards. To mitigate these risks to an acceptable level, specialised safety measures are essential.

Project objectives

• Generate experimental data of high quality for vented deflagrations in real-life enclosures and containers with congestion levels representative of industrial practice;
• Characterise different strategies for explosion venting, including hinged doors, natural vent openings, and commercial vent panels;
• Invite the larger scientific and industrial safety community to submit blind predictions for the reduced explosion pressure in selected well-defined explosion scenarios;
• Develop, verify and validate engineering models and CFD-based tools for reliable predictions of pressure loads in vented explosions;
• Develop and validate predictive tools for overpressure (P) and impulse (I), and produce P-I diagrams for typical structures with relevance for hydrogen energy applications;
• Use validated CFD codes to explore explosion hazards and mitigating measures in larger enclosures, such as warehouses; and
• Formulate recommendations for improvements to European (EN-14994), American (NFPA 68), and other relevant standards for vented explosions.

Partners

The partners in the HySEA consortium are Gexcon (coordinator), University of Warwick, Universita di Pisa, Impetus, Fike Europe and Hefei University of Technology (HFUT).

The HySEA project receives funding from the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen 2 Joint Undertaking (FCH 2 JU) under grant agreement No. 671461. This Joint Undertaking receives support from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme and the United Kingdom, Italy, Belgium and Norway.