Library Subscription: Guest

ISSN Online: 2379-1748

ISBN Flash Drive: 978-1-56700-517-2

5-6th Thermal and Fluids Engineering Conference (TFEC)
May, 26–28, 2021 , Virtual

CFD VALIDATION OF THE THERMODYNAMIC MODEL OF A COMPRESSED GASEOUS HYDROGEN STORAGE TANK

Get access (open in a dialog) pages 495-504
DOI: 10.1615/TFEC2021.est.036525

Abstract

The highly abundant and friendly environmental nature of hydrogen makes it the best candidate to be considered as a replacement for current conventional energy sources, especially fossil fuel. To complete the setup of such hydrogen-based energy system, efficient hydrogen storage needs to be developed. An essential requirement toward this development is a sufficient knowledge of the dynamic behavior of the storage system. The fundamental parameters of the dynamics are thermodynamic properties, namely density, pressure and temperature. Knowing these parameters leads to developing deeper insights about the storage system in order to apply control and optimization of performance. In this research, we implemented a zero-dimensional analysis governed by ordinary differential state equations with respect to time in order to predict the important variables involved. Using this simplified thermodynamic model, we calculated the pressure and temperature of the hydrogen gas inside the storage tank based on the principles of conservation of mass and energy. Utilizing the first law of thermodynamics, we expressed the pressure and temperature as a function of time. We also developed a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) model. The equations numerically solved in the CFD model include the Navier-Stokes equation for conservation of momentum and the continuity equation for conservation of mass. We have compared the CFD model with the thermodynamic model for several initial condition assumptions to validate the results. We intend to extend this work to develop an energy storage system, including its pressure and temperature controllers.
Video presentation