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In this study, we evaluated the fire safety of vehicles that use compressed hydrogen as fuel. We conducted fire tests on vehicles that used compressed hydrogen and on vehicles that used compressed natural gas and gasoline and compared temperatures around the vehicle and cylinder, internal pressure of the cylinder, irradiant heat around the vehicle, sound pressure levels when the pressure relief device (PRD) was activated, and damage to the vehicle and surrounding flammable objects. The results revealed that vehicles equipped with compressed hydrogen gas cylinders are not more dangerous than CNC or gasoline vehicles, even in the event of a vehicle fire.

To achieve a method for flame exposure testing of high-pressure cylinders in automobiles that allows fair evaluations to be made at each testing institute and also provides high testing accuracy, we investigated the effects of the flame scale of the fire source, the fuel type, the shape of the pressure relief device shield, and the ambient temperature through experiments and numerical simulation. We found that, while all of these are factors that influence evaluation results, the effects of some factors can be reduced by increasing the flame size. Therefore, a measurement technique to quantitatively determine the flame size during the test is required. Measuring temperatures at the top of each cylinder is a candidate technique. Furthermore, flame exposure tests to be conducted on cylinders as single units must ensure safety during a vehicle fire.

The distribution of concentrations of hydrogen leaking into the front compartment and the dispersion after the leak was stopped were investigated to obtain basic data for specifying the mounting positions of hydrogen leak detecting sensors and the threshold values of alarms for compressed hydrogen vehicles. Ignition tests were also conducted to investigate the flammability and the environmental impact (i.e. the impact on human bodies). These tests were also conducted with methane to evaluate the protection against hydrogen leaks in vehicles in comparison with natural gas (methane). We found that the concentration of hydrogen in the front compartment reached 23.7 vol% maximum when hydrogen gas was allowed to leak for 600 sec from the center of the bottom of the wheelbase at a rate of 131 NL/min, which is the allowable limit for a fuel leak at the time of collision of compressed hydrogen vehicles in Japan.