Search Results

According to European Union strategies, hydrogen technologies have a significant potential for the decarbonization of the automotive sector. Fuel Cells are considered a highly sustainable alternative to internal combustion engines for hybrid powertrain solutions. Since experimental tests on real prototypes are extremely costly in terms of time and resources, they represent a limit to the development rapidity of such complex vehicles. Consequently, simulation models are gaining further importance for their intrinsic time- and cost-saving characteristics, while their predictive capability is crucial. Accordingly, the development of the so-called “digital twins” able to accurately represent the real-time digital counterpart of a physical system has become an important research issue.

Hydrogen plays a crucial role towards the decarbonization of the transport sector, whilst most of the challenges for a widespread diffusion of hydrogen-based technologies are related to storage technologies. The use of Metal Hydrides (MH) has been widely recognized as a potential solution thanks to their advantages in terms of high degree of safety, high volumetric storage density, comparatively low operating pressure, the possibility of operation at room temperature and relatively low cost. Since the hydrogenation and dehydrogenation of MH are respectively highly exothermic and endothermic reactions, thermal management of the storage tank is one of the most critical issues to ensure safe and effective operations.