A brief review of structural health monitoring based on flexible sensing technology for hydrogen storage tank

Hydrogen has become a popular alternative energy to traditional fossil fuels due to its potential to contribute to a more sustainable future. It is recognized that the safety, efficiency, and economic aspects of hydrogen storage and transportation play an important role in the hydrogen energy industry. The development and commercialization of hydrogen energy are currently hindered by the structural integrity issue associated with hydrogen storage tanks. To tackle this structural integrity issue, a tangible structural health monitoring (SHM) technology is entailed for the health management of hydrogen storage tanks. Currently, flexible transducers are increasingly used to construct sensing systems and facilitate the deployment of SHM methods due to their superior properties such as conformality, low profile, and lightweight. This paper provides an overview of the SHM methods based on flexible sensing technology for hydrogen storage tanks. The most common damage modes caused by diverse factors during the service life for four types of hydrogen storage tanks are first summarized. The burgeoning flexible sensing technologies with corresponding damage characterization methods (including strain-based and elastic wave-based methods) are reviewed, and their applications in storage tanks are also discussed. On this basis, potential advancements and research topics regarding SHM systems based on flexible sensing technology for hydrogen storage tanks are discussed, and it is expected that flexible sensing technology will play a gamechanging role in the future construction of SHM systems for hydrogen storage tanks.