VKI: Research Expertise Group on Environmental Flows & Safety; Research Expertise Group on Industrial Flows

General expertise of the research group

Numerical simulation, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and experimental testing for industrial and environmental hydrogen flows and for safety analysis for hydrogen applications.

Specific hydrogen- related expertise & research topics

• Safety:
  • detonation risk
  • risk mitigation of explosions
  • leakage
• Industrial application:
  • cooling of steel with hydrogen

Available equipment/tools

• Software platforms for CFD
  • OpenFOAM®
  • WRF
  • High Performance Computing (HPC) cluster
• Testing facilities
  • Water Spray Facility: The Water-Spray facility is designed for the general study of liquid sprays that are generated by pneumatic and pressure nozzles. It is equipped with a pump capable of delivering spray flow rates up to 1 dm3/s at a pressure of 8 bar, with metering of both flow rate and feed pressure, into a 3×4 m2 collecting pool. The facility is also equipped with a set of gas burners and vertical flat plates, which are instrumented with thermocouples and radiometers, to simulate thermal shielding by a water curtain.

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

• [SPACE] PREDICT DREAMS is the continuation of PREDICT (experimental characterization of a slurry flow or densified cryogenic flow in hydraulic similitude with future cryogenic propellant at the triple point) in the framework of a PhD thesis. In this activity, both numerical simulation and experimental investigations are carried out. A CFD solver based on a Euler-Euler approach coupled with the Granular Kinetic Energy theory is in development, satisfactory results were obtained once validated against the PREDICT experimental data. The final ambitious goal targets experiments characterizing a slush flow and possibly evaluate the solver performances. Funding: FRIA/FNRS and ESA – NPI.
• [ENERGY] Be-HyFE (Belgian Hydrogen Fundamental Expertise): this project aims at developing a Belgian PhD network with PhD level research on hydrogen, about many different topics across the hydrogen value chain. The VKI PhD will focus on advanced characterization of thermodynamic properties of densified cryogenic hydrogen (or e-fuels more in general): composition (crystals shape and size), aging dynamics (stratification, melting), rheology and behaviour in pipelines and their components. This densified cryogenic slush is a promising solution to increase the volumetric density for storage and increase the resistance against boil-offs and heat losses during long distance transportation. Funding: Energy Transition Fund, by the Belgian Federal Public Services “Economy”.

International and industrial collaborations

• Arcelor Mittal
• Total
• Solvay
• GDF Suez