Hydrogen for railways: design and simulation of an industrial benchmark study

Abstract

Electrified Railway System are probably the most sustainable way to move people and goods especially for ground connections over short and mid distances. Hydrogen & Batteryoperated trains represents a feasible solution to increase sustainability of railway lines that are currently not electrified and consequently operated with fossil powered units. In this work authors investigate, on a benchmark test case, advantage and critical aspects of the proposed technology respect to near to realistic design constraints. Proposed train layout is quite innovative respect to current literature since the composition is longer and storage is arranged to make faster and easier system refuelling. Authors focused their attention on three aspects that has proven quite critical for the design: encumbrances of hydrogen storage, additional consumptions introduced by auxiliaries also during train stops and other preparation phases, real orography of Italian lines which deeply affects the autonomy of the train.