In this study, numerical analysis was performed on a type IV hydrogen storage tank to analyze the temperature change of hydrogen inside the tank and the filling performance by changing the inlet nozzle outlet angle and the number of outlets. Considering the residual state of charge (SOC) inside the initial tank, the initial pressure was 10 MPa, and the temperature of hydrogen inside the tank and the SOC results were analyzed when hydrogen with a temperature of 233 K was introduced under the conditions of liner, wrap, and outside temperature of 298 K. The results of the analysis showed that the charging completion rate reached the charging limit pressure. The analysis showed that time of filling completion, when the filling limit pressure is reached, the SOC result is about 94% for all geometry change conditions, and the filling completion time increases by 5s as the number of outlets decreases. The temperature change of the wrap area at the end of filling is up to 3.6K, which shows that the outside air temperature has a negligible effect on the hydrogen temperature change inside the tank.

The government declared ‘2050 carbon neutrality’ as a national vision in October 2020 and subsequently pursued the establishment of a ‘2050 carbon neutrality scenario’ as a follow-up response. Hydrogen is considered as one of the most promising future energy carriers due to its noteworthy advantages of renewable, environmentally friendly and high calorific value. Liquid hydrogen is thus more advantageous for large-scale storage and transportation. However, due to the large difference between the liquid hydrogen temperature and the environment temperature, an inevitable heat leak into the storage tanks of liquid hydrogen occurs, causing boil-off losses and vent of hydrogen gas. Researches on insulation materials for liquid hydrogen are actively being conducted, but research on support design for minimal heat transfer and enhanced rigidity remains insufficient. In this study, to design support structures for liquid hydrogen storage tanks, a thermal-structural coupled analysis technique was developed using Ansys Workbench. Analytical models were created based on the number and arrangement of supports to propose structurally safe support designs.

Hydrogen is considered as one of the most promising future energy carriers due to its noteworthy advantages of renewable, environmentally friendly and high calorific value. However, the low density of hydrogen makes its storage an urgent technical problem for hydrogen energy development. Compared with the density of gas hydrogen, the density of liquid hydrogen is more than 1.5 times higher. Liquid hydrogen is thus more advantageous for large-scale storage and transportation. However, due to the large difference between the liquid hydrogen temperature and the environment temperature, an inevitable heat leak into the storage tanks of liquid hydrogen occurs, causing boil-off losses and vent of hydrogen gas. Researches on insulation materials for liquid hydrogen are actively being conducted, but research on support design for minimal heat transfer and enhanced rigidity remains insufficient. In this study, to design support for liquid hydrogen storage tank, technique of thermal-structural coupled analysis including geometry, mesh, and boundary condition were developed using Ansys workbench, and equivalent stress and deformation distributions were analyzed.

Liquified hydrogen is considered a new energy resource to replace conventional fossil fuels due to environmental regulations by the IMO. When building tank for the storage and transportation of liquified hydrogen, materials need to withstand temperatures of -253°C, which is even lower than that of LNG (-163°C). Austenitic stainless steel mainly used to build liquified hydrogen tank. When building the tanks, both the base material and welding zone need to have excellent strength in cryogenic condition, however, manual arc welding has several issues due to prolonged exposure of the base material to high temperatures. Laser welding, which has some benefits like short period of exposure time and decrease of thermal affected zone, is used many industries. In this study, laser bead on plate welding was conducted to determine the laser butt welding conditions for STS 304 and STS 316L steels. After the BOP test, cross-section observations were conducted to measure and compare four bead parameters. These tendency result of laser BOP test can be used as conditions laser butt welding of STS 304 and STS 316L steel.

Decarbonization plays an important role in future energy systems for establishing a zero-carbon society. Hydrogen is believed to be a promising energy source that can be converted, stored, and utilized efficiently, leading to a broad range of possibilities for future applications. Hydrogen can be stored in various forms, including compressed gas, liquid hydrogen, hydrides, adsorbed hydrogen. Among these, liquid hydrogen has high gravimetric and volumetric hydrogen densities. There are a lot of previous studies on thermal behavior of MLI and VCS and optimization insulation system, but research on the insulation performance by varying the head shape of the tank has not been conducted. In this study, thermal-structural coupled analysis was conducted on the insulation system with VCS positioned between two layers of MLI for a liquid hydrogen storage tank. The analysis considered dome shapes (torispherical, circle, ellipses), and heat flux and temperature were derived from thermal analysis to predict insulation performance. Maximum equivalent stress and deformation were calculated from the structural analysis, and the optimal dome shape was proposed.