Session: Student Poster Competition

Submission Number: 186891

Design and Creation of a High-Pressure Ammonia Boiling Rig 

As ammonia continues to be investigated as a fuel and hydrogen carrier in aviaition and other applications, it is important to understand the fundamental properties of ammonia boiling. For commercial aircraft engines, an appeal of ammonia as a hydrogen carrier is the ability to store it as a liquid much easier than hydrogen itself. Though, to decompose ammonia into hydrogen and nitrogen, it is most effective at higher temperatures where the ammonia is a vapor. For retrofit applications, the pressures needed in an ammonia boiler ranges from around 20 bar during cruise to up to 45 bar for takeoff. Ammonia boiling correlations have been developed at lower pressures where it is used as a refridgerant in the HVAC industry. While these correlations have been validated at lower pressures, it is unsure if these correlations are still relavant to ammonia boiling at the pressures needed for commercial aviation. Additionally, there is no experimental work on ammonia boiling at these pressures. With this, an experimental rig that can give experimental data to compare these correlations to is necesarry for understanding if these correlations are still valid or if new ones are needed for these pressures. This poster goes through the design and construction of an ammonia boiling rig capable of measuring ammonia flow boiling up to 45 bar. This poster will lay out the design requirements, difficulties in design, and many other aspects that went into the design and construction of the ammonia boiling rig.

Presenting Author: Connor Wall University of Central Florida

Presenting Author Biography: Connor Wall is a Graduate Research Assistant at the Applied Energy Systems Group @ CATER within the University of Central Florida. His work is with zero-emission aviation, looking at using liquid ammonia as a hydrogen carrier for the commercial aviation industry. His previous work looked at novel catalyst-support combinations for post-combustion NOx reduction while his current focus is on ammonia flow boiling at the pressure ranges found in commercial aviation engines.

Authors:

Connor Wall University of Central Florida
Alejandro Moreno University of Central Florida
Maria Julia Paz Navarro University of Central Florida
Richard Blair University of Central Florida
Marcel Otto University of Central Florida
Jayanta Kapat University of Central Florida