An investigation of liquid-hydrogen storage and refueling systems for vehicular applications was made in a recently completed project. The vehicle used in the project was a 1979 Buick Century sedan with a 3.8-L displacement turbocharged V6 engine and an automatic transmission. The vehicle had a fuel economy for driving in the high altitude Los Alamos area that was equivalent to 2.4 km/L of liquid hydrogen or 8.9 km/L of gasoline on an equivalent energy basis. About 22% less energy was required using hydrogen rather than gasoline to go a given distance based on the Environmental Protection Agency estimate of 7.2 km/L of gasoline for this vehicle. At the end of the project the engine had been operated for 138 h and the car driven 3633 km during the 17 months that the vehicle was operated on hydrogen . Two types of onboard liquid-hydrogen storage tanks were tested in the vehicle: the first was an aluminum Dewar with a liquid-hydrogen capacity of 110 L; the second was a Dewar with an aluminum outer vessel, two copper vapor-cooled thermal radiation shields, and a stainless steel inner vessel with a liquid-hydrogen capacity of 155 L. The Buick had an unrefueled range of about 274 km with the first liquid-hydrogen tank and about 362 km with the second. The Buick was fueled at least 65 times involving a minimum of 8.1 kL of liquid hydrogen using various liquid-hydrogen storage Dewars at Los Alamos and a semiautomatic refueling station. A refueling time of nine minutes was achieved, and liquid hydrogen losses during refueling were measured. The project has demonstrated that liquid-hydrogen storage onboard a vehicle, and its refueling, can be accomplished over an extended period without any major difficulties; nevertheless, appropriate testing is still needed to quantitatively address the question of safety for liquid-hydrogen storage onboard a vehicle. (ERA citation 07:047325)


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    Title :

    Operating Experience with a Liquid-Hydrogen Fueled Buick and Refueling System


    Contributors:

    Publication date :

    1982


    Size :

    42 pages


    Type of media :

    Report


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English




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