Thermal response of composite hydrogen tank and TPRD during fast fuelling

High-pressure composite tanks are widely used for gaseous hydrogen storage. A safety concern and knowledge gap is the potential overheating of components, including TPRD, during fast fuelling. This study presents a numerical investigation of the thermal response of a 12-litre tank with L/D = 9 under various fuelling conditions, e.g. tank orientation, and a fuelling failure scenario with excessive mass flow rate. The simulation demonstrated that, for a 3-min fuelling duration, the temperature non-uniformity (maximum–bulk difference) in horizontally oriented hydrogen tanks exceeds 29 °C. Vertical top-down fuelling reduces gradients by about 40 %, whereas bottom-up fuelling increases temperature non-uniformity and must be avoided. An extreme fuelling failure scenario with a mass flow rate of 50 g/s shows that hydrogen temperatures can exceed 300 °C. However, TPRD activation remains unlikely due to slow heat transfer to the sensing element. Monitoring only the average temperature is misleading as local temperature may exceed 85 °C and affect liner integrity. • Thermal response of large L/D composite tank with TPRD to fast fuelling is studied. • Temperature non-uniformity in a horizontal 12 L (L/D = 9) tank reaches 29 °C. • Vertical tank top-down fuelling cuts temperature non-uniformity by 40 %. • Incidental fuelling at 50 g/s (12 L tank) raises hydrogen temperature above 300 °C. • TPRD is unlikely to be activated during failed fuelling with high mass flow rate.