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Hydrogen Cools Well, but Safety Is Crucial

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Re: Hydrogen Cools Well, but Safety Is Crucial

#41

Hydrogen sucks to work with, from everything I've heard. In addition to the combustion risk when oxygen is introduced, there's the fact that hydrogen molecules are tiny and like to slip through otherwise solid materials, which is annoying if you're trying to fuel a rocket, but it's eventually catastrophic for containment vessels, due to hydrogen embrittlement[1]. As tempting as it is for its benefits, I don't see it…

I've worked with hydrogen (H2) quite a bit recently. Embrittlement and leakage are easy to work around, but here are the pain points I've seen: 1. H2 is still expensive. Most fuel cells require very pure H2 (five nines; 99.999%), or else it can damage the internal membrane. This pure H2 is not very affordable outside of a limited number of fuelling stations. 2. The rules around H2 use and transportation are still fuz…

> 3. H2 is light weight but takes up a lot of volume, limiting the usefulness of small-scale applications. Compressing it to liquid takes a lot of energy.

My understanding is that H2 is seeming to standardize upon 300-bar (aka: 4500ish PSI).

There's liquid and a few other more difficult storage (700-bar / 10,000 PSI for example). But 300-bar is where a lot H2 stuff is standardizing today.

Its not quite as dense as in liquid form, but it starts to be usable at 300-bar. Of course, the thicker and heavier steel needed to hold H2 at this pressure makes it unsuitable for say... drones. But its more than usable for H2 Forklifts and other smaller vehicles.

Re: Hydrogen Cools Well, but Safety Is Crucial

#42

> Kilmartin said one of the questions he asked when he first got into the business was “who came up with this idea? He had to be a madman.” Kilmartin should spend more time around rocket scientists. After hearing a few tales of some of the stuff they've come up with in the name of performance - like a Hydrogen/Lithium/Fluorine(!) tripropellant engine (but you get an Isp of 542s!!!) - using Hydrogen for cooling will s…

Rocket science as a field moved out of exotic energetic fuels by the end of the 90's, because the juice wasn't worth the squeeze, and there is currently an ongoing industry-wide exodus from hydrogen to methane for the same reason. Getting the peak of performance sounds cool when you ignore costs, but in the real world with limited budgets, building a rocket twice as large is easily worth it if it means you never have…

> there is currently an ongoing industry-wide exodus from hydrogen to methane for the same reason.

Exodus seems a bit of an overstatement. Other than spacex who else has or is planning to develop a methane engine? And other than SSME and Vulcain which other widely used engines used H2?

Re: Hydrogen Cools Well, but Safety Is Crucial

#43
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rocket science as a field moved out of exotic energetic fuels by the end of the 90's, because the juice wasn't worth the squeeze, and there is currently an ongoing industry-wide exodus from hydrogen to methane for the same reason. Getting the peak of performance sounds cool when you ignore costs, but in the real world with limited budgets, building a rocket twice as large is easily worth it if it means you never have…

> there is currently an ongoing industry-wide exodus from hydrogen to methane for the same reason. Exodus seems a bit of an overstatement. Other than spacex who else has or is planning to develop a methane engine? And other than SSME and Vulcain which other widely used engines used H2?

> who else has or is planning to develop a methane engine?

BO's New Glenn first stage, RocketLab's Neutron, and Relativity Space's Terran 1/Terran R, are all/will all be methane.

> which other widely used engines used H2?

Ariane 5 and 6, and the upper stages of previous Ariane rockets

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_propellant#Current_cryo...

Edit: Long March 9 will be mostly methane, with hydrogen upper stage.

Re: Hydrogen Cools Well, but Safety Is Crucial

#44
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I do not argue the explosive nature of it, safety can be improved by embracing how fast it disperses. Think Toyota went that path with interleaved fibers in their containers' outer enclosures, to augment that effect, so it isn't sufficient for an explosion to occur. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVeagFmmwA0 (Edit: added Toyota's test where they shot an hydrogen tank, you can see the fibers and the gas dispers…

True. But a hydrogen / air mixture is explosive from 4% hydrogen to 74% hydrogen, Americans love their attached garages, and most attached garages feature a perfectly-placed electric spark detonator...er, I mean electric garage door opener...which is triggered daily.

Fair

Re: Hydrogen Cools Well, but Safety Is Crucial

#45
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rocket science as a field moved out of exotic energetic fuels by the end of the 90's, because the juice wasn't worth the squeeze, and there is currently an ongoing industry-wide exodus from hydrogen to methane for the same reason. Getting the peak of performance sounds cool when you ignore costs, but in the real world with limited budgets, building a rocket twice as large is easily worth it if it means you never have…

> there is currently an ongoing industry-wide exodus from hydrogen to methane for the same reason. Exodus seems a bit of an overstatement. Other than spacex who else has or is planning to develop a methane engine? And other than SSME and Vulcain which other widely used engines used H2?

What Karellen said, but also ArianeSpace (Prometheus) and Landspace (TQ-12).

It is very hard for a hydrogen-fueled rocket to be cost-competitive against a methane-fueled one. Not strictly because of the cost of the fuel, but because of the cost of everything else that LH requires that LCH4 doesn't.

Re: Hydrogen Cools Well, but Safety Is Crucial

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're just not worth the cost in infrastructure and lack of efficiency compared to BEVs. Don't BEVs weigh more than hydrogen cars, given the same model and range? That would give at least some incentive to use hydrogen over BEV, as it decreases road wear, which reduces the costs associated with the operation of that car. Additionally, hydrogen cars could be considered safer once they've gotten into an accident, a…

Even if car registration was taxed completely commensurate with their road wear (i.e. weight) the difference wouldn't be enough to move people over from BEV given the lack of refilling options. Gas still has the infrastructure, but batteries are closer to having what they need than hydrogen for critical adoption. Unless you're in the upper Midwest and your car is one of those stuck at a charger unable to fast charge…

Exactly. People freaking out over EV infrastructure haven't done the math - nearly all first world home electric hookups are fine for charging a couple of EVs
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