New thermal insulation concepts for bulk liquid hydrogen shipping
The scope of this topic is to develop validated containment concepts intended for bulk shipping of LH2. The concepts developed should also be suitable for a later scale-up.
To achieve this, several new challenges that greatly impact bulk LH2 storage scalability need to be addressed, ideally by an industrial lead consortium. The scope for the development of new thermal insulation concepts for bulk LH2 shipping requires:
- Assessment of the regulatory requirements for the transportation of bulk LH2 on ships;
- Development of an insulation system solution, notably the pipes through the insulation and pipe feedthroughs, the connections, and the supporting structures, during normal operation, loading and unloading processes, maintenance, and inspection;
- 2D Numerical analysis of tank heat ingress and internal heat and mass transfer (boil off rate, stratification, and temperature distribution in the insulation) taking into account thermal cycling (e.g. as those related to sloshing events, loading or unloading);
- Numerical analysis of tank internal and external supports to minimise heat leaks through thermal bridges while keeping structural integrity under high thermal stresses and transport conditions at sea;
- Design and manufacture a tank prototype with a capacity of at least 30 m3 to trade-off costs and representativeness and test it at relevant environmental conditions (with LH2, appropriate heat loads, accelerations) to confirm the benefits of the new insulation approach and to validate the numerical analysis;
- Analysis of the scalability of the concept among transport volume ranges;
- Demonstration of the techno-economic viability of the concept;
- Investigate cost-efficient manufacturing processes;
- Develop a System Oriented Digital Twin to assess the impact of the insulation at tank level within its functional operation/scenarios (venting, cool down, first-filling, refuelling), and to serve as support for scalability studies after its validation against the prototype experiments;
- Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) for the tank concept, and analysis of the resilience and fault-tolerance of the system;
- Demonstration of the safety performance of the insulation concept;
- Evaluate the effects of the insulation system design on the risk management of the LH2 tank;
- Fire resistance of the insulation assembly by modelling and testing;
- Design a tank with improved insulation within the minimum size among proper transport volume ranges;
- Pre-normative standardisation of integrity assessment for LH2 and marine environment exposure and test methods in cooperation with relevant stakeholders from the industry.
Proposals are expected to demonstrate the contribution to EU competitiveness and industrial leadership of the activities to be funded including but not limited to the origin of the equipment and components as well infrastructure purchased and built during the project. These aspects will be evaluated and monitored during the project implementation.
Applicants are encouraged to seek synergies with the Zero Emission Waterborne Partnership concerning regulatory requirements and pre-normative standardisation.
Proposals should provide a preliminary draft on ‘hydrogen safety planning and management’ at the project level, which will be further updated during project implementation.
For additional elements applicable to all topics please refer to section 2.2.3.2
Activities are expected to start at TRL 3 and achieve TRL 5 by the end of the project - see General Annex B.
The JU estimates that an EU contribution of maximum EUR 4.00 million would allow these outcomes to be addressed appropriately.