In support of the Hydrogen Interagency Task Force, the Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration will host a webinar on November 9 on the transportation factors unique to alternative fuel vehicles within tunnel environments.
Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office
November 7, 2023
minute read time
In support of the Hydrogen Interagency Task Force, the Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration will host a webinar on Thursday, November 9 at 1 p.m. ET presenting research funded by the Department of Energy on the transportation factors unique to alternative fuel vehicles within tunnel environments.
Alternative fuel vehicles, such as those powered by batteries, compressed natural gas, and hydrogen, present unique hazards when operated within tunnels. Recent work by Sandia National Laboratories will be presented, including a review of multiple types of alternative fuel vehicles as well as safety analyses of hydrogen-powered vehicles. Various experimental and numerical analyses in the open literature have explored different hazards for alternative fuel vehicles; these works will be reviewed and compared between different types of fuel. Hydrogen vehicles have been analyzed using probabilistic risk assessment and high-fidelity fluid/heat transfer modeling techniques for multiple tunnel geometries.
Following the presentation, an open discussion will be held to develop a generalized framework for understanding the safety of hydrogen and other alternative fuel vehicles in additional tunnel types, and to consider additional release scenarios.
Presenters include Chris LaFleur, Sandia National Laboratories, and Brian Ehrhart, Sandia National Laboratories.