Safety Analysis of a Fuel Cell Powered Electric Vehicle With Liquid Hydrogen, LH2, Stored Onboard Vehicle
. H. Bigün, Center for Safety Research, Royal Institute of Technology, KTH, Stockholm, SwedenFuel cell powered electric vehicle that has liquid hydrogen, LH2, as a fuel has been analysed from the safety point of view. Fault and event tree analysis methods have been utilized in order to meet the objectives of the current work. The vehicle system is based on the following main components: LH2 tank, fuel cell, electric engine, auxiliary battery, air compressor to mention but few. The electricity obtains from the fuel cell in electrochemical way. Liquid hydrogen which is stored onboard vehicle together with oxygen obtained from the air serve as fuels to the fuel cell. Hydrogen being a very light and in liquid form having high energy capacity is very convenient energy carrier. However the drawback of hydrogen as an energy medium is that hydrogen has very low ignition energy and it can be explosive in a certain amount of quantity mixture with oxygen. Failure modes of the main components of the vehicle system have been identified. Different scenarios which have the potential to lead to an undesired event as a consequence has been studied with the event tree analysis method.
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