Design of Hydrogen Compressor and Pump by using TURBOdesign Suite and Ansys Workbench

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Hydrogen is now considered as an important option for many sectors that can not be easily electrified e.g. aviation, steel or concrete production. Hydrogen can also speed up the process of decarbonization in some existing technologies such as gas turbines. Also, with growth of renewable energy and the intermittent nature of this type of energy source there is interest in Green Hydrogen, which is generated by electrolysis using renewable energy, as an effective means of energy storage. One key bottleneck in the growth of Hydrogen as a fuel source is its large scale transport. The US Department of Energy in a recent study identified two possible means of large scale transport. Hydrogen gas pipeline or Liquefied Hydrogen.

In this joint ADT & Ansys webinar we will look at keys issues around design of Hydrogen compressor and pump. One key aspect of Hydrogen is its lower molecular weight and hence design of a centrifugal compressor would require much higher tip speeds than for air or natural gas. In this study we will show the design of the first stage of an 8 stage internally geared Hydrogen compressor with pressure ratio of 1.2 and tip speed of around 600 m/s. TURBOdesign Suite will be used for meanline design and impeller design optimization. ANSYS CFX and ANSY Workbench will then be used to assess the design for its aerodynamic performance and structural integrity. The other key issue is Hydrogen embrittlement and in this study we will show how ANSYS material library Granta can be used to find alternative materials.

For the LH2 pump the key problem is cavitation. In this study we will show the design of an LH2 pump stage with head rise of 600 m. TURBOdesign Suite will be used to design the inducer and impeller and volute. The control of cavitation in the inducer and impeller by adjusting the blade loading using the 3D inverse design method will be outlined. Another key issue in design of LH2 pump is accurate prediction of cavitation, and we will show how the cavitation model in ANSYS Fluent can be tuned to provide accurate prediction of cavitation for LH2 pump.