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Avai lab le at www.sc iencedi rect .com

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Development of a web-based 3D virtual reality program forhydrogen station

Younghee Lee a, Jinkyung Kim a, Junghwan Kim a, Eun Jung Kim b, Young Gyu Kim b,Il Moon a,*a Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Yonsei University, 134 Shinchon-dong Seodaemun-ku, Seoul 120-749, Koreab Institute of Gas Safety R&D, Korea Gas Safety Corporation, 322-1 Daeya-Dong Siheung-si, Kyonggi-do 429-712, Korea

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:

Received 17 September 2009

Received in revised form

11 December 2009

Accepted 12 December 2009

Available online 12 January 2010

Keywords:

Hydrogen fueling station

Operator education

Virtual reality

Hypothetical experience

* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ82 2 363 9375E-mail address: ilmoon@yonsei.ac.kr (I. M

0360-3199/$ – see front matter ª 2009 Profesdoi:10.1016/j.ijhydene.2009.12.065

a b s t r a c t

The hydrogen fueling station is an infrastructure of supplying fuel cell vehicles. It is

necessary to guarantee the safety of hydrogen station equipment and operating procedure

for decreasing intangible awareness of danger of hydrogen. Among many methods of

securing the safety of the hydrogen stations, the virtual experience by dynamic simulation

of operating the facilities and equipment is important. Thus, we have developed a virtual

reality operator education system, and an interactive hydrogen safety training system.

This paper focuses on the development of a virtual reality operator education of the

hydrogen fueling station based on simulations of accident scenarios and hypothetical

operating experience. The risks to equipment and personnel, associated with the manual

operation of hydrogen fueling station demand rigorous personnel instruction. Trainees can

practice how to use all necessary equipments and can experience twenty possible accident

scenarios. This program also illustrates Emergency Response Plan and Standard Operating

Procedure for both emergency and normal operations.

ª 2009 Professor T. Nejat Veziroglu. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction in South Korea. South Korea makes much effort to apply

Hydrogen is currently gaining much attention as a possible

future substitute for fossil fuel in the transport sector. Alter-

natives to oil and internal combustion engines may be intro-

duced in a larger scale in the next decades due to concerns

about the transport sector’s potential contribution to envi-

ronmental problems and oil depletion [6]. A future hydrogen

economy needs the establishment of new infrastructures for

producing, storing, distributing, dispensing and using

hydrogen. Hydrogen fueling stations are key sites with the

elements of hydrogen infrastructures. 160 hydrogen fueling

stations are already built around the world and six stations are

; fax: þ82 2 312 6401.oon).sor T. Nejat Veziroglu. Pu

hydrogen energy to vehicles as the world’s fifth ranked car-

producing country. The hydrogen production technologies

have been well developed in this field [2]. Safe operations are

one of the major issues in running hydrogen fueling stations.

Therefore, safety assessment for the safe use of hydrogen

fueling station should be taken considering risk and also even

if the leak occur, emergency response plan must be prepared

for eliminating ignition sources and ventilating hydrogen not

to be enough to go into the flammable limits [1,3].

As analyzing accident statics in industrial plants, the

human error was one of the most frequent causes [4]. Because

safety regulations for the hydrogen fueling stations are not

blished by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 3 5 ( 2 0 1 0 ) 2 1 1 2 – 2 1 1 8 2113

made yet, operator training for the safe use of station cannot

be neglected. To address these educational needs, many

countries and institutes have attempted to solve the problem

related to hydrogen safety. For example the European

Network of Excellence ‘Safety of Hydrogen as an Energy

Carrier (NOE HySafe, www.hysafe.org) has begun to establish

the e-Academy of Hydrogen Safety [7]; A.E. Dahoe et al. have

developed an international curriculum on hydrogen safety

engineering [8]; I. MacIntyre et al. also have developed Cana-

dian hydrogen safety program [9]. Among these methods,

virtual experience training is one of the most effective

methods in order to have competent hydrogen fueling station

operators. Therefore, this study develops the virtual reality

operator training program including eight-type hydrogen

stations, which have been built for preparing hydrogen

economy in South Korea.

The program consists of two modules, one module is virtual

experience simulator and the other is hydrogen safety educa-

tion. The virtual experience module is through which trainees

can indirectly experience the working principles and the

hydrogen safety education module is through which trainees

can study safety of hydrogen and its facilities by using moving

pictures and text contents. Also the accident scenario simu-

lator module can train safely emergency response plan by

using dynamic simulation. Based on these modules, emer-

gency response plan and standard operation procedure are

developed to minimize damage when accident occurs.

2. Hydrogen fueling station

Hydrogen station systems are key technologies to commer-

cialize fuel cells and fuel cell powered vehicles. They can

provide hydrogen fuel for vehicles in many different ways. For

instance, Hydrogen can either be delivered to or produced at

the fueling station. It can be delivered as a trucked

compressed gas, a trucked cryogenic liquid, or through

a hydrogen pipeline. Hydrogen can be produced at the fueling

station by either electrolysis of water or reforming of hydro-

carbons such as natural gas. Each of these delivery and

production modes requires a significantly different fueling

station design. While hydrogen dispensers are basically the

same regardless of the delivery or production mode,

dispensers for compressed and liquid hydrogen fueled vehi-

cles are completely different. These combinations of

hydrogen delivery or production at the station, compressed or

Fig. 1 – Hydrogen fueling st

liquid hydrogen dispensing, and various components and

integration alternatives make up the array of hydrogen fueling

infrastructure and station design options. Fig. 1 describes the

hydrogen fueling station type and option. Despite the many

variations on station designs, most stations contain the

following pieces of hardware [5]:

- Hydrogen production equipment (e.g. electrolyzer, steam

reformer, hydro desulfurizer, water gas shift reactor, pres-

sure swing adsorption if hydrogen is produced on-site).

- Hydrogen liquefier equipment: (e.g. liquid hydrogen storage

tank, high pressure heat exchanger, cryogenic pump, driver

motor)

- Purification system: purifies gas to acceptable purity for use

in hydrogen vehicles.

- Compressor: compresses hydrogen gas to achieve high

pressure fueling and minimize storage volume.

- Storage vessels: liquid or gaseous.

- Safety device (e.g. vent stack, fencing, bollards, breakaway,

emergency shutdown device, leakage detection system) [6]

- Mechanical equipment (e.g. underground piping, valves)

- Electrical equipment (e.g. control panels, high-voltage

connections).

3. Web-based 3D virtual reality program forhydrogen station

This program is developed using virtual reality technology on

the web application. Operators and station users can access to

the program easily and experiences the equipments or safety

devices in the hydrogen fueling station freely. Flash or video

clips are applied to this simulator for station’s working prin-

ciples, operating method of the accident mitigation devices,

possible accident modeling in the station, and accident

developing process according to safety device installation. Also

it offers the knowledge of accident mitigation device, a guide

and manual for an operator, a video clip of a dynamic simula-

tion result, comprehensive countermeasures and precautions

on the web. Fig. 2 represents the program’s homepage and

contents. The web site address is www.kgsh2.or.kr.

3.1. Program modeling

This program has developed based on EON studio program.

And 3D modeling of web is created from importing hydrogen

ation type and option.

Fig. 2 – Main page and contents of web program.

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station model made by 3D MAX and inputting event by EON

studio. EON Studio� is the basic development tool that allows

users of all experience levels to build interactive 3D product

content quickly and easily with no programming experience

required. With EON Studio users of all experience levels can

quickly and easily build complex, high-quality interactive

applications. It EON studio supports two kinds of event node

for user’s interaction on the web.

The first is off-line events, which executes events that are

previously defined by contacting tree on actual EON studio.

The second is on-line event, the method for interaction on

the web. Also, off-site event is added by importing model file

(*obj) form EON studio to be made in 3D MAX as shown in

Fig. 3. EON Studio supports input/output node to share

Boolean, Integer, Float and Vector unit, etc. This input/output

node could be occurred run time event by this and link JAVA

script on the web. User’s input data in the virtual reality is

delivered to the web by output node and is applied command

language using an input node.

Fig. 3 – 3D Modeling of

3.2. Virtual reality experience module

A simulator is developed regarding eight-types of hydrogen

stations as shown in Fig. 5. Those are city gas reforming

method, LPG reforming method, naphtha reforming method,

compressed hydrogen gas delivery method, electrolysis

method, kerosene reforming method, hybrid method and

liquid hydrogen delivery method. The simulator based on the

actual size is constructed virtual reality (VR) by 3D modeling.

Also the VR module consists of Navigation controller, VR

viewer, process menu, type menu, event and description

window as shown in Fig. 4.

The virtual reality experience module display hydrogen

fueling station facilities (HDS, Reformer, WGS, PSA,

Compressor, Storage, Dispenser, Control Office, Fuel Cell

Vehicle, etc.) and safety equipment (Emergency Shutdown

Device, Vent Stack, Protective Wall, Leakage Detection

System, Programmable Logic Controller, etc.). Following

figures are the examples of virtual reality experience module.

hydrogen station.

Fig. 4 – Navigation view of Program.

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Using this module, trainees can indirectly experience the

station working principles by moving freely with a mouse and

a keyboard, and understand the main facilities and equipment

what is that by texted description. For an example, on-site

station system produces hydrogen by reacting raw materials

with high temperature vapor in the reformer. Hydrogen is

purified in the PSA and stored in the buffer storage vessels by

using a high pressure compressor. Then it is filled to the fuel

cell vehicle through the dispenser.

Fig. 5 – Example of virtual rea

Also this module displays material processing of produc-

tion unit using flash animation. Main installations of

a hydrogen station, a hydrogen production equipment,

compressor, storage vessel and dispensers, are modeled in

details into 3D and building virtual reality.

A trainee can select the instruments and equipments and

view them freely by rotating scale up and down as shown in

Fig. 6. The reformer is the most important equipment in the

station because the capacity of reformer is a determinate

lity experience module.

Fig. 6 – Example of object view.

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factor to the quantity of hydrogen production. So reformer VR

is scrutinized in this module. Also, this module is developed

by animation including some safety instrument work events

by animation as shown in Fig. 7.

3.3. Accident scenario simulation module

A dynamic simulation is conducted by commercialized CFD

program to develop hydrogen accidents model. Video clip or

animation files offer simulation results easily understood by

hydrogen station accidents. The CFD data based on acci-

dents scenario in hydrogen station which user directly

Fig. 7 – Animation event of e

construct on the program is implemented on the hydrogen

simulator by using VR method and CFD results apply to the

hydrogen station simulator. Description is attached for

trainees to understand the accidents developing process and

results as shown in Fig. 8.

The accidents such as leak, fire and explosion in hydrogen

fueling station can be occurred from a break down of equip-

ment, an external impact, and an operator’s mistakes and so

on. In addition, that hydrogen leak behavior appears differ-

ently in each facility because each facility has emission rate,

pressure, temperature. Therefore, about 50 varied accident

scenarios are divided by dispenser, vent stack, compressor,

storage, pipe and tube trailers, and scenario of each facility is

developed by considering the leak direction and climate. The

following are examples of accident scenario according to

facilities.

- Dispenser: Pressure relief devices on dispenser, storage

tanks failure, human error and mechanical failure can bring

about a leak in the dispenser. Also, hydrogen released to the

atmosphere has a potential of a fire or an explosion.

- Vent Stack: Instrument failure or pressure relief valve failing

to open can bring about natural gas compressor high

discharge pressure. As a result, reformer has to be at a state

of overpressure state

- Compressor: Mechanical failure of line or fitting, loss of

cooling fluid, human error and failure of pressure relief

valve to open can bring about accident such as compressor

suction, discharge valve failure, cooling system failure, High

pressure hydrogen supply line failure. As a result, hydrogen

leak with a potential fire or explosion can occur by

compressor failure.

mergency safety device.

Fig. 8 – Accident Scenario Module.

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- Tube Trailer: Mechanical failure or improper connection,

improper venting before disconnect or leak when making

new connection can bring about hose connection leaks

during detachment or attachment and tube trailer failure

which has potential of a fire.

Hydrogen Dispersion model is constructed by considering

hydrogen buoyancy effect and major factors likes pressure,

temperature, climate, k-e model variables concerning acci-

dents. And other variables assumed like an ideal gas. It

implements the dynamic simulation according to the various

conditions and the result is transformed into video clips.

Bellow figure is example of result at 7.2, 26.4, and 50.4 s in

dispenser accident scenario Fig. 9.

From these simulation results, hydrogen diffuses up

rapidly due to buoyancy effect. We draw a conclusion from

this result. If ventilation facilities, leak detection, emergency

shutdown device, blocking power facilities are installed well,

secondary accidents such as fire or explosion can be

Fig. 9 – Dynamic simulation result of

prevented and be reduce damages significantly when

a leakage accident occur.

3.4. Emergency response plan and standard operationprocedure

We develop emergency response plan and standard operation

procedure for the safe usage of hydrogen fueling station based

on virtual reality experience module and accident scenario

simulation module.

The emergency response plan consists two cases, a leakage

accident and a fire accident by ignition source after leakage.

Developing information is well-organized the emergency

response procedures and recovery process system in each

department on the morrow of accident occurred. Also, stan-

dard operation procedures for the safe operation of hydrogen

fueling station (from hydrogen producer to dispenser) provide

standard guidelines like process statement, procedure, and

operation method.

hydrogen leak in the dispenser.

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4. Conclusion

This study develops a 3D virtual reality operator training

system with two modules for running hydrogen fueling

stations. One is virtual reality experience module that

provides information of hydrogen station facilities and safety

equipment, the other is accident scenario simulation module

that represents twenty possible scenarios in the hydrogen

fueling stations. The module based on the CFD simulated

shows twenty accident scenarios, such as gas leak, fire,

explosion and detonation, which are caused by equipment

failure, corrosion, operator’s error and external attack. This

program gives much helpful information for trainees to

effectively understand the hydrogen fueling station, operating

more safely, and making plans against emergency.

This program has a plan to be extended to codes and

regulations, more various types of the stations, accident

reports, and more rigorous simulations of the accident

scenarios. The final developed program may offer all the

information about hydrogen fueling stations and may be not

only the effective operator training program but also the

public relations for the safer usage of hydrogen.

Acknowledgment

The authors acknowledge the financial support of the Ministry

of Education through the second stage Brain Korea 21 Program

at Yonsei University

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