Program Type

Undergraduate

Faculty Advisor

John Krohn

Document Type

Poster

Location

Face-to-face

Start Date

25-4-2023 9:00 AM

Abstract

The Hydrogen Flame Demonstration project encompasses the design, fabrication, and usage of a pressure vessel system with the goal of demonstrating the hazardous flammable properties that are associated with gaseous hydrogen. This project was completed as a part of a 16-week internship at the NASA White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico during the Spring of 2022. As the interest of technologies using hydrogen as a fuel, or otherwise, increases, informing and setting ‘best practices’ for use of pressure systems containing hydrogen becomes increasingly necessary. Gaseous hydrogen is highly flammable with the presence of air or oxygen. Since the minimum ignition energy (MIE) of a stoichiometric mixture of hydrogen with air is exceptionally low at 0.017 mJ, the lower flammability limit of hydrogen in air is only 4% by volume, hydrogen flames in air are invisible to the naked eye, and the size of the hydrogen molecule is small which makes it prone to leakage, common failure modes of hydrogen include deflagration, detonation, and non-visible flames. However, the technologies associated with hydrogen as a fuel are promising and could be the solution to climate change issues. To unlock the potential of hydrogen-based technology, researchers, engineers, and handlers that associate with such technologies should be informed and design for the hazards involved. This project demonstrated the characteristics of a hydrogen flame with in-person demonstrations, high quality video of the demonstrations, and will serve as the foundation of future experiments to investigate hydrogen flame properties such as auto-ignition conditions in collaboration with the US Department of Energy.

Comments

https://youtu.be/jy5CmY71dLk

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Apr 25th, 9:00 AM

Demonstration of Hydrogen Combustion Properties

Face-to-face

The Hydrogen Flame Demonstration project encompasses the design, fabrication, and usage of a pressure vessel system with the goal of demonstrating the hazardous flammable properties that are associated with gaseous hydrogen. This project was completed as a part of a 16-week internship at the NASA White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico during the Spring of 2022. As the interest of technologies using hydrogen as a fuel, or otherwise, increases, informing and setting ‘best practices’ for use of pressure systems containing hydrogen becomes increasingly necessary. Gaseous hydrogen is highly flammable with the presence of air or oxygen. Since the minimum ignition energy (MIE) of a stoichiometric mixture of hydrogen with air is exceptionally low at 0.017 mJ, the lower flammability limit of hydrogen in air is only 4% by volume, hydrogen flames in air are invisible to the naked eye, and the size of the hydrogen molecule is small which makes it prone to leakage, common failure modes of hydrogen include deflagration, detonation, and non-visible flames. However, the technologies associated with hydrogen as a fuel are promising and could be the solution to climate change issues. To unlock the potential of hydrogen-based technology, researchers, engineers, and handlers that associate with such technologies should be informed and design for the hazards involved. This project demonstrated the characteristics of a hydrogen flame with in-person demonstrations, high quality video of the demonstrations, and will serve as the foundation of future experiments to investigate hydrogen flame properties such as auto-ignition conditions in collaboration with the US Department of Energy.