PilgrHYm: Pre-normative research on integrity assessment protocols of gas pipes repurposed to hydrogen and mitigation guidelines

Project description

Transporting natural gas through pipelines has been shown to be safe and efficient for decades. However, decarbonizing European industry and reducing carbon emissions would require a significant portion of the existing pipeline infrastructure to be used for transporting gaseous hydrogen under high pressure across the continent, from production sites to end users. The pipelines, originally designed for natural gas, are not considered H2-ready, and transmission system operators have to demonstrate their compatibility with hydrogen. The existing standards, such as ASME B31.12, are often viewed as overly conservative and not conducive to the development of pure hydrogen networks.

PilgrHYm is an ambitious R&D project that seeks to develop a pre-normative framework to support the creation of a European standard. The project conducts a comprehensive testing program on small-scale laboratory specimens, focusing on eight base materials, two welds, and two heat-affected zones that are representative of the EU gas grids. These specimens are selected after a thorough review by TSOs to address safety concerns, lack of regulations, codes, and standards, as well as research gaps related to the compatibility of current pipelines with hydrogen.

PilgrHYm’s ultimate goal is to provide quantified data on more than 70 % of the EU grid and to refine existing norms, codes, and standards by reducing over-conservatism and ensuring the safety and reliability of flaw assessment methodologies. The results of PilgrHYm will serve as the baseline for a harmonized European solution.

This project represents a significant step forward in the development of a comprehensive European standard for transporting hydrogen through pipelines and is instrumental in the successful decarbonization of European industry and thus reducing carbon emissions.

Fraunhofer IWM subproject: Innovative modeling approaches for numerical developments

Fraunhofer IWM investigates and provides approaches to achieve reduction and extrapolation of Fatigue Crack Growth (FCG) as well as a reduction in the number of experimental tests for the development of new FCG-master curves. The objectives of the work package are to support the testing campaigns, to improve FCG-master curves, to achieve less conservative FCG-master curves, and to contribute to the creation of a design criterion.