#119 ACTC interview at JEC World 2024: The H3 of H2: High Pressure, High Safety, High Speed Winding of an H2 Tank
11.04.2024 6 min Staffel 5 Episode 76
Zusammenfassung & Show Notes
The H3 of H2: High Pressure, High Safety, High Speed Winding of an H2 Tank
Join our podcast episode with Dr. Viktor Reimer, Head of Pressure Vessel at ACTC
In this episode you will learn from ACTC how to make 700 bar pressure vessel tanks for hydrogen applications. Since hydrogen is risky, they have designed a safety factor of 2.35
Imagine your car tire has some 2 bars "only". Compare it with 700x2.35!
We also clarify how HRC has shared the tasks between its European sites (Engenuity Ltd, ACTC and the newest member Compositex S.r.l.) and China.
We continue with our post-show coverage of JEC Group's JEC World in the next weeks to come.
Watch the YouTube video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La_vL9IhhIg
Join our podcast episode with Dr. Viktor Reimer, Head of Pressure Vessel at ACTC
In this episode you will learn from ACTC how to make 700 bar pressure vessel tanks for hydrogen applications. Since hydrogen is risky, they have designed a safety factor of 2.35
Imagine your car tire has some 2 bars "only". Compare it with 700x2.35!
We also clarify how HRC has shared the tasks between its European sites (Engenuity Ltd, ACTC and the newest member Compositex S.r.l.) and China.
We continue with our post-show coverage of JEC Group's JEC World in the next weeks to come.
Watch the YouTube video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La_vL9IhhIg
Transkript
So LinkedIn community and composites
experts out there.
This is now further coverage
of the JEC World 2024.
And I am here together with ACTC,
a group member
of HRC from China.
Maybe you remember last year
I've shown you guys with Erich Fries,
the managing director of Germany,
the XPeng Drone here.
Today we have other stuff to show you.
And with me now is Viktor Reimer.
Maybe you've seen Viktor
in our last LinkedIn live,
where we were talking about hydrogen,
and today is also about hydrogen.
So, Viktor, my first question to you
is, what's your role at ACTC?
My role is to lead a team of engineers
to develop a hydrogen pressure vessel
that you can see here.
The hydrogen pressure vessel,
which we use to store hydrogen.
The pressure tank we develop
reaches more than 700 bars
of working pressure
and is designed
with a high safety factor
of around 2.35.
My task is to set up a team in China,
in Changshu, where ACTC is based
to develop the tank.
So there, we have all the machinery
there already installed.
And I did this
when I arrived in China in 2020,
where I started with one person,
that's me.
And now we are more than eight people
working on the project
for pressurized storage;
for the pressure vessel
to store hydrogen.
-So, Viktor, thank you
for introducing yourself
and your role at ACTC.
Now let's move to the HRC group.
Tell us about the HRC group
in general and ACTC and Engenuity,
which I've met already in Burgess Hill (UK)
last year.
-Well, HRC is an international
parts provider,
which includes different kind
of technologies
to make composite parts.
And it mainly consists of three areas:
Engenuity is the development
of the composite
analytical development
like FEA, CAE and so on.
It also includes ACTC, my part,
where we make protoypes.
So we produce there prototypes
for automotive industry.
Especially the pressure vessels,
which is my personal topic.
And the third one
is HRC mass manufacturing.
The area where we produce parts
for the composite industry.
Mainly transportation,
but also like aviation and cars.
Usually it's really
strong cars.
And of course also some others
like transportation
for trains and other topics,
wind power and construction.
-Viktor, now tell us
please, about the hydrogen tank.
How is that developed
within the HRC group?
-HRC group we develop
the pressure vessel
with all three entities of HRC.
HRC mass Manufacturing, ACTC
as part of HRC
and Engenuity, of course.
At Engenuity we make
all the analytical tasks
like finite element analysis
and at ACTC we prototype.
As you see in the background,
this is one of the first prototypes
we made at ACTC in Changshu, China.
And HRC mass manufacturing
support us on topics
for later industrialization
of the product.
So, Viktor, what is your market focus
on hydrogen storage tanks?
Our market focus is mainly
for strong vehicles,
heavy duty vehicles.
Like for transportation,
for truck and trains
and hydrogen transportation
in special containers.
For those we need quite big tanks
with more than 150 or 250l.
In the background
you see a smaller pressure vessel,
which is designed for demonstration.
We can bring it here easily,
but actually we focus
on much higher volumes
for more than 250l.
We also focus on 350 bar and 700 bars.
This gives us very good capacity
of the pressure vessel
to store the hydrogen
in a mobile application.
So, Viktor, thanks
for the explanations.
Now, what do we have here
on the booth?
Can you explain us
about the hydrogen tanks?
What you see here is our demonstrator
to show how we develop products
to store hydrogen
in a hydrogen pressure vessel.
This component is quite complex
as this is made
not just from carbon fiber.
It's also made from metal parts,
plastic parts
and all the system integration,
as you see here. Our other topics
that we also implement
into the hydrogen storage
is sustainability.
How to make CO2 footprint
of a product lower?
How to reduce it?
So we look first of all
on replacing the materials
by materials which use
just lower CO2 footprint.
Like the plastic liner can be replaced
by other materials
to be more sustainable.
Or the resin,
which covers the actual carbon fiber.
The resin that we can get
from our partners
to reduce the CO2 footprint.
Currently we have a running project
on reduction of the CO2 footprint
of the pressure vessel.