TWI is now ideally placed to use its new high pressure hydrogen facilities and expertise as European industry moves towards a hydrogen economy. Already two collaborative calls have been made relating to materials performance whichnecessitates use of high pressure equipment and TWI is seeking industrial partners for projects in response to these calls.
Careful design and build has been undertaken and commissioning of TWI's new facility is nearly complete. The equipment will allow mechanical testing to be carried out in hydrogen pressures of up to 1000bar, under dynamic tensile andfatigue loading regimes.
Material will be tested dynamically in the environment allowing the effect of hydrogen environmental embrittlement on tensile, low cycle fatigue and toughness properties of materials to be quantified. The equipment will be able tooperate over a temperature range of -150 to +85°C and at pressures of up to 1000 bar.
Development of safe, cost effective materials and fabrication routes are priorities for TWI. TWI is represented on the ISO 11114-4 committee for which is concerned with testing methods to allow selection of metallic materialsresistant to hydrogen embrittlement.
Two forthcoming collaborative calls are relevant to this subject area.
The first is part of Framework 7 through the Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Joint Technology Initiative. Details of the calls are described in the Implementation Plan and can be downloaded at: www.hfpeurope.org/hfp/keydocs
The second call is from the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) which is a UK based initiative, and is entitled: Environmental sustainability: fuel cells and hydrogen technologies.
It is anticipated that demand for the TWI facilities will be high and testing programmes are already planned. Industrial Members requiring more information should contact hydrogen@twi.co.uk
