Publications

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The need to understand the risks and implications of traffic incidents involving hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles in tunnels is increasing in importance with higher numbers of these vehicles being deployed. A risk analysis was performed to capture potential scenarios that could occur in the event of a crash and provide a quantitative calculation for the probability of each scenario occurring, with a qualitative categorization of possible consequences. The risk analysis was structured using an event sequence diagram with probability distributions on each event in the tree and random sampling was used to estimate resulting probability distributions for each end-state scenario. The most likely consequence of a crash is no additional hazard from the hydrogen fuel (98.1–99.9% probability) beyond the existing hazards in a vehicle crash, although some factors need additional data and study to validate. These scenarios include minor crashes with no release or ignition of hydrogen. When the hydrogen does ignite, it is most likely a jet flame from the pressure relief device release due to a hydrocarbon fire (0.03–1.8% probability). This work represents a detailed assessment of the state-of-knowledge of the likelihood associated with various vehicle crash scenarios. This is used in an event sequence framework with uncertainty propagation to estimate uncertainty around the probability of each scenario occurring.

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The availability of repair garage infrastructure for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is becoming increasingly important for future industry growth. Ventilation requirements for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles can affect both retrofitted and purpose-built repair garages and the costs associated with these requirements can be significant. A hazard and operability study (HAZOP) was performed to identify key risk-significant scenarios related to hydrogen vehicles in a repair garage. Detailed simulations and modeling were performed using appropriate computational tools to estimate the location, behavior, and severity of hydrogen release based on key HAZOP scenarios. This work compares current fire code requirements to an alternate ventilation strategy to further reduce potentially hazardous conditions. Overall, the amount of flammable mass of hydrogen at any one time in the simulation is low compared to the total mass of hydrogen released, due to the low flow rate of a low pressure release. It is shown that position, direction, and velocity of ventilation have a significant impact on the amount of instantaneous flammable mass in the domain.

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Hydrogen Fueling Infrastructure Research and Station Technology (H2FIRST) is a project initiated by the DOE in 2015 and executed by Sandia National Laboratories and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to address R&D barriers to the deployment of hydrogen fueling infrastructure. One key barrier to the deployment of fueling stations is the land area they require (i.e. "footprint"). Space is particularly a constraint in dense urban areas where hydrogen demand is high but space for fueling stations is limited. This work presents current fire code requirements that inform station footprint, then identifies and quantifies opportunities to reduce footprint without altering the safety profile of fueling stations. Opportunities analyzed include potential new methods of hydrogen delivery, as well as alternative placements of station technologies (i.e. rooftop/underground fuel storage). As interest in heavy-duty fueling stations and other markets for hydrogen grows, this study can inform techniques to reduce the footprint of heavy-duty stations as well. This work characterizes generic designs for stations with a capacity of 600 kg/day hydrogen dispensed and 4 dispenser hoses. Three base case designs (delivered gas, delivered liquid, and on-site electrolysis production) have been modified in 5 different ways to study the impacts of recently released fire code changes, colocation with gasoline refueling, alternate delivery assumptions, underground storage of hydrogen, and rooftop storage of hydrogen, resulting in a total of 32 different station designs. The footprints of the base case stations range from 13,000 to 21,000 ft² . A significant focus of this study is the NFPA 2 requirements, especially the prescribed setback distances for bulk gaseous or liquid hydrogen storage. While the prescribed distances are large in some cases, these setback distances are found to have a nuanced impact on station lot size; considerations of the delivery truck path, traffic flow, parking, and convenience store location are also important. Station designs that utilize underground and rooftop storage can reduce footprint but may not be practical or economical. For example, burying hydrogen storage tanks underground can reduce footprint, but the cost savings they enable depend on the cost of burial and the cost land. Siting and economic analysis of station lot sizes illustrate the benefit of smaller station footprints in the flexibility and cost savings they can provide. This study can be used as a reference that provides examples of the key design differences that fueling stations can incorporate, the approximate sizes of generic station lots, and considerations that might be unique to particular designs.

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This report reviews and offers recommendations from Sandia National transportation of hazardous materials in the U.S. The risk criteria should be used with the results of a quantitative risk assessment (QRA) in risk acceptance decision-making. The QRA for transportation is fundamentally the same as a fixed facility. However, there are differences in calculations of both the probabilities of occurrence and location of hazards. Involuntary individual fatality risk is recommended to be acceptable for annual probabilities of less than 3 x 10^-7 for any population, including vulnerable populations, and may be considered acceptable at the regulators discretion for non-sensitive/non-vulnerable populations if less than 5 x 10^-5 and demonstrated to be as low as reasonably practicable (ALARP). Societal risk is recommended to be acceptable if the annual frequency of events that would result in N or more fatalities is less than 10^-5/N events per year and may be considered acceptable at the regulators discretion if less than 10^-3/N events per year and demonstrated to be ALARP. These criteria should be applied to the societal risk over the entire transportation route, not normalized per-distance. These values are adapted from the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 59A, a U.S. and international standard for liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility siting.

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DOE has identified consistent safety, codes, and standards as a critical need for the deployment of hydrogen technologies, with key barriers related to the availability and implementation of technical information in the development of regulations, codes, and standards. Advances in codes and standards have been enabled by risk-informed approaches to create and implement revisions to codes, such as National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 2, NFPA 55, and International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Technical Specification (TS)-19880-1. This project provides the technical basis for these revisions, enabling the assessment of the safety of hydrogen fuel cell systems and infrastructure using QRA and physics-based models of hydrogen behavior. The risk and behavior tools that are developed in this project are motivated by, shared directly with, and used by the committees revising relevant codes and standards, thus forming the scientific basis to ensure that code requirements are consistent, logical, and defensible.

Additional fueling stations need to be constructed in the U.S. to enable the wide-spread adoption of fuel cell electric vehicles. A wide variety of private and public stakeholders are involved in the development of this hydrogen fueling infrastructure. Each stakeholder has particular needs in the station planning, development, and operation process that may include evaluation of potential sites and requirements, understanding the components in a typical system, and/or improving public acceptance of this technology. Publicly available templates of representative station designs can be used to meet many of these stakeholder needs. These 'Reference Stations' help reduce the cost and speed the deployment of hydrogen stations by providing a common baseline with which to start a design, enabling quick assessment of the suitability of a particular site for a hydrogen station, and identifying contributors to poor economics and research and development areas for certain station designs.

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