Numerical Investigation of the Thermal Behavior in a Hydrogen Tank During Fast Filling Process

To investigate the thermal behavior during fast hydrogen filling process, the simple one-dimensional analysis considering the heat conduction in tank wall and the three-dimensional numerical simulation dealing with inner gas region were carried out. The numerical analyses were subject to the fast filling test of 35 MPa hydrogen gas into 34 litter tank for 80 seconds. The one-dimensional analysis predicted the temperature rise and the heat loss into surrounding air qualitatively and the averaged temperature of tank wall was underestimated. On the other hand, the three-dimensional simulation overestimated the temperature distribution because of using adiabatic wall condition. However, the effects of buoyant force and convective flow on local thermal profile were fully explained from our numerical results.