Experimental and numerical study of material requirements for liquefied and compressed gas hydrogen storage tanks

Hydrogen storage tanks must hold fuel at extreme temperatures without cracking or leaking. This PhD project will test how different materials—porous substances, metals, and metal hydrides—behave under the punishing conditions inside both compressed and liquefied hydrogen storage systems. The problem is straightforward: hydrogen can power vehicles and industry without emitting carbon, but storing it safely and efficiently remains a bottleneck. Compressed hydrogen needs high-pressure tanks; liquid hydrogen requires temperatures near absolute zero. Materials that work at room temperature often fail when chilled or repeatedly cycled with hydrogen. Engineers lack reliable data on which combinations of materials and tank designs can survive these stresses over years of use. If this research succeeds, it will give tank manufacturers concrete experimental data to choose better liners, bulk storage materials, and metal alloys. That could make hydrogen storage tanks lighter, cheaper, and more durable—improving a piece of infrastructure most people never see but that quietly determines whether hydrogen-powered trucks, buses, and heating systems become practical. The work is applied, not fundamental: it directly targets a materials-science gap that currently slows commercial hydrogen deployment.