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Hydrogen Storage Systems Lab
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The lab clarifies how hydrogen makes metals brittle and uses that knowledge to design safe hydrogen equipment.
AboutAbout the lab
Hydrogen makes metals brittle.
The Hydrogen Storage Systems Lab studies what happens to metal components inside equipment that uses hydrogen.
When hydrogen enters a material, its strength and ductility can drop. This is called hydrogen embrittlement.
Hydrogen embrittlement is an obstacle to designing equipment safely and to reducing costs.
The lab studies a wide range of materials, including stainless steels, martensitic steels, and nickel-based superalloys, examining how fatigue cracks grow and measuring fracture toughness in hydrogen gas.
The lab has equipment for tensile and fatigue testing in high-pressure hydrogen gas, as well as a torsional fatigue testing machine and a testing machine that can produce a wide range of temperatures, from low to high, in air.
The surfaces of fractured specimens are observed with a field emission scanning electron microscope. EBSD is used to examine crystal orientation, and thermal desorption analysis is used to measure the amount of hydrogen released from a material.
Students run the equipment and carry out their experiments themselves, and receive support from technical staff for equipment that requires advanced knowledge and skills.
Key terms
- Hydrogen embrittlement
- A phenomenon in which hydrogen entering a metal makes it less ductile and more prone to cracking
- Fatigue crack
- A crack that forms in a material under repeated loading and grows little by little
- Fracture toughness
- A property that indicates how much force a material containing a crack can withstand without breaking
NewsLab news
An undergraduate student received the Outstanding Presentation Award at the 79th General Meeting and Lecture Meeting of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers (JSME) Kyushu Branch
A master's student received the Young Researcher Award at the 12th Academic Lecture Meeting and General Meeting of the Japan Society of Materials Science (JSMS) Kyushu Branch
A master's student received the Young Researcher Award at the 11th Academic Lecture Meeting and General Meeting of the Japan Society of Materials Science (JSMS) Kyushu Branch
An undergraduate student received the Outstanding Presentation Award at the 55th Graduation Research Presentation Meeting for Student Members of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers (JSME) Kyushu Student Chapter
A master's student received the Young Researcher Award at the 10th Academic Lecture Meeting and General Meeting of the Japan Society of Materials Science (JSMS) Kyushu Branch
ResearchResearch themes
In equipment that uses hydrogen, many kinds of metal components are exposed to hydrogen gas. The lab aims to clarify the mechanisms of hydrogen embrittlement in various metallic materials and to establish criteria for selecting materials for use in hydrogen gas environments, as well as methods for designing the strength of equipment. In this way, it hopes to contribute to safer and lower-cost systems for storing, transporting, and supplying hydrogen. The core of its work is research on metal fatigue based on mechanics of materials. Besides the effects of hydrogen, the lab also works on methods for evaluating rolling contact fatigue strength from the standpoint of fracture mechanics. For the strength properties of metallic materials in high-pressure hydrogen gas, the lab plays a leading role in an international round-robin test conducted jointly by Japan, the United States, and Germany.
View More ↗MembersFaculty
The members of the Hydrogen Storage Systems Lab are faculty members, staff, and doctoral, master's, and undergraduate students. The lab also welcomes international students for both long and short stays.
- ProfessorHisao Matsunaga
- Assistant ProfessorPark Sungcheol
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Report an errorAbout the images
The top and research theme images are illustrative and were not taken at the lab. They are cropped from Wikimedia Commons images. Cropped CC BY-SA images are provided under the same CC BY-SA license as the original (version shown on each line).
- Top image: “Eggshell” TeWeBs / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (水素製造プロセス研究室): “Unterschiedliche Keramische Multikanalelemente” Peter in s / Public domain (cropped)
- Related lab (燃料電池システム研究室): “Volvo FH fuel cell testing (2023)” Anders Jubilson / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (水素適合材料・破壊学研究室): “Toyota Mirai high-pressure hydrogen tank SAO” Mariordo (Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz) / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (水素機能材料学研究室): “TotalEnergies hydrogen station in Magdeburg” Michał Beim / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
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