Review on the safety analysis and protection strategies of fast filling hydrogen storage system for fuel cell vehicle application

Hydrogen is an extremely explosive gas and is flammable in a wide range of concentrations in air. Therefore, the prevention of the leakage and explosion of hydrogen during the hydrogen filling process is of paramount importance in the development of fuel cell vehicles. Despite the demand for rapid hydrogen charging for fuel cell vehicles is met, the problem of temperature rise inevitably exists. Thus, this review focuses on the safety of fuel cell vehicles and surrounding during the hydrogen filling process by summarizing the potential safety hazards during the hydrogen filling process, while the measures of detection and protection are put forward accordingly. The effects of filling rate, inlet pressure, filling time, and pre-cooling of the hydrogen at storage tank are considered, and suitable mitigation measures and schemes are proposed in this paper to reduce the effects of unfavorable phenomena during the filling process. To limit or mitigate the effect of temperature rise, the measures such as hydrogen pre-cooling, adopting staged filling, controlling the filling rate, and selecting the inner lining materials of hydrogen storage tank are described. A series of hydrogen safety control strategies during the hydrogen filling process are reviewed and the results obtained from the simulation study of concentration distribution during hydrogen leakage as well as the simulation study of temperature distribution in hydrogen storage tank during rapid hydrogen charging are summarized and discussed.