Numerical simulation of hydrogen filling process in novel high-pressure microtube storage device

Novel high-pressure microtube hydrogen storage device has higher hydrogen storage density and safety than conventional hydrogen tanks. A one-dimensional numerical model for hydrogen filling process in microtubes is established, with reasonable calculation methods and accurate physical properties adopted. Based on the analysis of flow parameters variations, three stages of the filling process are summarized. At the beginning of the filling process, the maximum temperature appears at the inlet, but the average temperature does not rise significantly during the whole process. The effects of microtube length, filling pressure and environmental temperature are investigated and discussed. The results show that excessively long microtubes greatly increase the filling time and higher filling pressure reduces the filling time and improves the filling efficiency. The microtube hydrogen storage device achieves higher hydrogen storage density and filling efficiency in lower temperature mediums. It reveals that high filling pressure, low temperature encapsulation and reasonable microtube size design are the future development directions of microtube hydrogen storage for better application. (c) 2021 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.