Modeling of H2 Dispersion at ARIES

Hydrogen is a versatile and clean energy carrier that can be produced from various renewable sources such as wind, solar, and hydropower and help decarbonize electricity grids, industry, and transportation. Using the Hydrogen Research Facility under Advanced Research on Integrated Energy Systems (ARIES) at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL) Flatirons campus as a test bench, the study examines the feasibility, useability, and value of using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) techniques to model hydrogen dispersion. The ARIES facility was chosen because controlled hydrogen releases can be performed at a rate of 27 kg-H2/hr. Site-specific atmospheric and weather condition data such as wind speed and temperature were used as inputs to the model. The results show statistical distributions and ranges of hydrogen concentrations at locations throughout the domain. Wind conditions are found to significantly impact the release behavior, including the hydrogen cloud's direction and concentrations. At low wind speeds (below 1 mph), hydrogen forms a cloud and at higher wind speeds (> 2-4 mph) hydrogen plume stretches in the direction of wind momentum. From >100 simulations for ARIES site-specific conditions, statistical quantities combined with a clustering algorithm were used to propose sensor location at various elevations from ground.