Tue, 19 November, 2024
TWI is pleased to announce that we have secured €500k in GSTP grant funding from the European Space Agency to build a unique facility to help companies qualify components for high-temperature hydrogen service.
Hydrogen embrittlement (HE) poses a critical challenge for materials in the space sector. The severity of hydrogen embrittlement can vary depending on factors like temperature, pressure, material composition, processing history, heat treatment and loading conditions. All of these factors must be carefully considered during the design stage, to ensure that mission critical components survive in their intended operating environment.
While R&D on HE-resistant materials is ongoing, its application in flight-ready materials remains limited due to the lack of suitable test facilities that replicate high-pressure and high-temperature hydrogen embrittlement conditions. To address this gap, it is important that the sector has access to appropriate testing facilities to qualify materials prior to their entry into service.
We have now started a 24-month project to build an ‘Elevated Temperature Hydrogen Embrittlement Rig (ETHER),’ which will set TWI up as a service provider for high-temperature hydrogen embrittlement testing, tailored to space applications. We aim to be able to perform dynamic mechanical tests in H2 gas at pressures up to 500 Bar and temperatures up to 425°C.
This new facility will be housed within TWI’s environmental testing laboratories in Cambridge, UK, and will maintain TWI's position at the forefront of gaseous H2 testing.
We look forward to working with industry to meet testing requirements and produce much-needed test data.
In related news, TWI has also become the ESA’s Technology Broker for the UK – you can find out more about this on the dedicated website, here.