4.04 - Hydrogen Safety Engineering: The State-of-the-Art and Future Progress

Abstract

High-priority research directions for the hydrogen economy include safety as not only a technological issue but as also a psychological and sociological issue. This chapter provides an overview of the state-of-the-art in hydrogen safety as a technological issue only. Progress in closing knowledge gaps in hydrogen safety engineering is described including the similarity law for hydrogen concentration decay in unignited underexpanded jets; the universal correlation for hydrogen jet flame length; and pressure effects of unscheduled releases of hydrogen, jet fires, deflagrations and detonations, and so on. Regulations, codes, and standards are presented, and the framework is introduced for carrying out the hydrogen safety engineering, which is defined as an application of scientific and engineering principles to the protection of life, property, and environment from the adverse effects of incidents involving hydrogen. Safety strategies and accident prevention and mitigation techniques are overviewed. The most important topics of future hydrogen safety research are identified.