OCAS: Department Applications and Solutions

General expertise of the research group

Applied research and development of materials. Supported by a state-of-the-art lab, OCAS can perform decent metallurgical investigations and testing of materials in different environments with the ability to closely represent the operational circumstances. Solving questions of customers about material compatibility considering degradation, design life and safety aspects. Ranking of candidate materials, material selection and risk mitigation.

Specific hydrogen- related expertise & research topics

• Applied R&D on the interaction between hydrogen and materials.
• Thorough knowledge and understanding of the metallurgical phenomena.
• Testing, standard and non-standard test equipment, for determination and understanding of the effect of hydrogen on the material performance under specific conditions and w/o loading: unloaded, static or dynamic loading.
• Determination of the behaviour of a material in an environment with presence of hydrogen at certain operating conditions.
• Modelling of interaction between hydrogen and materials by empirical testing and numerical simulations. Models to optimise production processes, maintenance schedules and prediction of material/component lifetime in a hydrogen environment.
• OCAS differentiates by focussing on large scale testing, test setups that cannot be performed in normal-sized labs, considering real operating conditions and safety aspects of the bigger industrial installations and infrastructure.
• Building of specific test equipment for testing under high pressure (including hydrogen, pure or blend) exposing materials and/or components. This service comprises the design and assembly of tailor-made test rigs for multipurpose i.e. focussing on a specific component of which the fitnessfor- purpose of the design is assessed with respect to a certain application, operating conditions and safety aspects.
• Assessment of pass / fail criteria on re-purposing assets such as pipelines and pressure vessels towards using hydrogen as transport or storage medium.
• Acceptance testing on fit for use aspects of seals (threaded metal-to-metal and other) in combination with different mixtures of hydrogen towards transmission, storage and end-use applications (e.g. downhole, pipeline, pressure vessel, gas bottle, connections, … )

Available equipment/tools:

All analytical equipment for measuring hydrogen content, in and through materials. OCAS is accredited for a series of analyses and qualified to work with deuterium.

• See equipment as specified in section Metallurgy
• Specialised software and modelling tools
• Upscale fatigue bench for large scale components or structures
• Heavy testing bench with possibilities for external and internal loading (installed in pressure pit)
• New to build, tailor-made test rigs for customer dedicated

Participating in FL/B/EU funded projects with H2 related research:

• Open to collaborate in funded projects
• HYWAY – Multiscale Characterisation and Simulation for Hydrogen Embrittlement Assessment: Development of an Open Knowledge Platform to Foster Capability Integration – HORIZON-CL4-2023

International collaborations:

• OCAS mainly works on a bilateral agreement between national or international customers. Different extends are possible, from a single measurement up to a dedicated research program. OCAS aims to accelerate the R&D at the customer, giving support by sharing competences and specific equipment.

Main relevant publications

See an excerpt of OCAS publications in section Metallurgy