So far safety concepts for hydrogen-drive cars have been derived mainly from existing rules and regulations for pressure vessels and gas plants. Whether these rules are sufficient for the strict requirements of hydrogen supply systems in passenger cars, however, is still unclear and therefore requires verification. Unlike industrial plants, it would not be appropriate in the case of passenger cars to assume that only trained personnel will be involved with the new energy carrier, as vehicles with hydrogen drive will be used for all kinds of purposes - and also abused in some cases, with various damage scenarios resulting in the process.
In the light of the situation, it is essential to start out by systematically determining and assessing possible hazards, effective improvements of the automobiles involved and their surrounding aspects only being possible after such a fact-finding procedure. This in turn calls for thorough cooperation between the automobile industry, on the one hand, and suppliers, energy utilities, the gas industry, and licensing authorities, on the other.
Only a clear and open discussion of the approaches taken and results achieved in safety tests can pave the way for general acceptance by the public at large of hydrogen as a possible energy carrier.
Conducting research on the safety of liquefied hydrogen (LH(2)), BMW is currently cooperating with Messer Griesheim GmbH and Linde AG in a series of research operations and tests serving first to determine the hazard potential of LH(2) tanks used in road vehicles, taking into consideration in the process the various parameters influencing the effects of this hazard, and second to determine further requirements to be made of such vehicle tanks in their basic concept. This experimental research is funded by the commission of the European Communities (CEC) as part of the EQHHPP (Euro-Quebec Hydro-Hydrogen Pilot Project).
The following report presents the initial results of these tests. Copyright (C) 1996 International Association for Hydrogen Energy