 |
|
Located in a new, Credit: Burrus/NIST |
If hydrogen is ever to play a
significant role as a clean, everyday energy source, it will need a
safe and reliable distribution system. To pave the way for a hydrogen
fuel infrastructure, researchers at the National Institute of Standards
and Technology (NIST) Boulder Labs recently launched the largest
hydrogen test facility in the United States for evaluating how component
parts of such an infrastructure will react to exposure to this
potentially corrosive gas in order to develop needed data and standards.
Because hydrogen can penetrate and embrittle some
metals and alloys, developing standards for using existing pipelines,
storage tanks, pumps and delivery systems is an essential first step
before the elemental gas can be considered as a viable fuel for
widespread use.
Tom Siewert leads a group of researchers at this NIST
test facility that will be testing these component parts—pipes, valves,
fittings and pumps, among other pieces—for their suitability in
transporting and delivering hydrogen.
The facility is state-of-the-art and contains one of
the largest (at 10 centimeters) internal diameter test chambers in the
country. In it are placed standard test specimens of component materials
– chunks of pipeline, a piece of a valve – and exposed to pressurized
hydrogen to measure how it reacts to such an environment and that kind
of chemical exposure. With such test data in hand, standards for
building a safe, reliable and robust hydrogen fuel system can be
developed for future storage, delivery and dispensing.
“You put in specimens to gather the property data, and
when it’s pressurized, a shaft goes into the chamber that puts stresses
on the specimen to simulate the strains that occur in everyday use,”
says Siewert, who helped plan the facility. “Structural designers would
then put the data we get from these specimens into their models to
understand how a structural component would respond to that hydrogen
under those conditions.”
The test facility is also replete with
state-of-the-art safety features including the ability to run every
phase of testing from a remote control center, multiple sensors that
automatically shut down the entire system and vent the test building at
even the slightest scent of hydrogen gas (1 percent concentration), a
massive venting system that is double what code requires, and a
lightning detection system that will automatically shut the facility
down if a strike occurs within 10 kilometers.
“The quantity of hydrogen in the equipment is low
enough that even if all the hydrogen suddenly leaked into the building,
it wouldn’t be enough to cause an explosion,” said Andy Slifka, a
materials research engineer and project leader.
The design of the hydrogen test facility won the RMH
Group—a Denver-based mechanical, electrical and industrial process
consulting engineering firm—a Gold Hardhat award in 2009 from
McGraw-Hill Construction. The award honors the building teams that
created the best projects of 2009 as selected by juries of local
prominent industry professionals.
Media Contact: James Burrus, james.burrus@nist.gov, (303)
497-4789
