Temperature effect in cavitation risk assessments of polymers for hydrogen systems

Abstract

Hydrogen storage at high pressure is currently attained by the use of different materials, such as elastomers in sealing joints, thermoplastics and thermosetting polymers in high-pressure containers, and metallic tube connections. Hydrogen containers type IV use a thermoplastic polymer for hydrogen tightness and composite materials for mechanical resistance, usually made with thermosetting resins and carbon or glass fibre. International standards impose a wide range of operative temperatures for such containers, from −40 °C to 85 °C.Once saturated with hydrogen at high pressure, a fast depressurisation process can create stress in the polymeric materials, causing its degradation by the formation of cavities. In a previous work, we were able to make a generalization of cavitation risk by the use of non-dimensional parameters, based on a simplified mechanical failure model. We observed that for the model, material's hydrogen diffusivity and yield strength are of upmost importance. In present work, we analyse the effect of temperature on these two properties, as they have an inverse evolution with temperature. Results confirm the pertinence of considering temperature in the whole application range of technology under analyse.