Abstract:

Before refueled in to the vehicle-mounted gas cylinder, the high-pressure hydrogen gas needs to be pre-cooled to prevent the structural damage of the cylinder by the high temperature gas. In the present study, a novel pre-cooling process integrating a vortex tube in replace of the traditional chiller is proposed. Then a numerical study of the vortex tube behavior is carried out for a high-pressure hydrogen flow. Obtained results from the numerical simulation show that the energy separation effect exists in the vortex tube with hydrogen flow at the pressure level of tens of megapascals. Moreover, it is found that the energy separation performance of the vortex tube improves as the pressure ratio increases. In other words, the temperature drop of the cold exit of vortex tube decreases as the pressure ratio decreases in the refueling process, which just matches the slowing-down temperature rise during the cylinder charge. Based on the obtained results, it is concluded that the integration of a vortex tube into the pre-cooling process has feasibility in the hydrogen fueling station.

Key words: vortex tube, hydrogen, pre-cooling process, energy separation, numerical simulation, thermodynamics process

摘要：

加氢站对车载高压气瓶充注之前，需先对高压氢进行预冷，以防加氢过程的气体升温带来的车载气瓶的结构性损伤。提出了一种基于涡流管预冷的新型加氢流程，该流程采用涡流管取代了传统的预冷装置。并采用计算流体力学的方法对加氢流程中的关键部件涡流管开展了数值计算。计算结果表明，高压加氢流程工况下的涡流管同样具有能量分离效应。且随着加氢过程的进行，涡流管出口背压提高，能量分离效应减弱，即冷端降温减缓。该过程恰好与气瓶充气增压过程升温减缓相吻合。数值计算结果初步证明了该流程的可行性。

关键词: 涡流管, 氢, 预冷流程, 能量分离, 数值模拟, 热力学过程