Influence of production time to flow characteristics of Slush Hydrogen
Slush hydrogen is a two phase solid-liquid fluid consisting of solid hydrogen particles and liquid hydrogen. Compared with liquid hydrogen, 50% solid mass fraction slush hydrogen has 16% higher density and 18% higher enthalpy gain. Various applications are anticipated such as fuel for reusable space shuttles, transportation medium of hydrogen energy. Research has been conducted on the flow characteristics of Slush Hydrogen which was produced by auger method up to 50% in solid mass fraction. Solid particle of hydrogen plays important roles on the flow characteristics of slush hydrogen. Due to the aging of solid particles by the long storage time, these particles combined with each other and become larger ones which resulted in the preventing from smoothly flowing of slush hydrogen in the piping. In this study it has been shown that using stirrer occasionally to uniform the distribution of solid particles was also effective to avoiding the aging and 30% slush hydrogen in solid fraction stored several hours in the production tank was proved to flow smoothly in the piping.