Optimisation of design parameters for a novel two-piston ionic compressor applied in hydrogen storage

The ionic compressor is an advanced and prospective compression technology for hydrogen storage. However, a complex wave phenomenon was observed inside the compression chamber due to the fluid flow vortex. This complex gas-fluid interaction can be intervened by a new mechanical design of the motion piston. In this paper, the thermodynamic performance of a novel homocentric two-piston ionic compressor was carried out by mathematical modelling of one compression cycle. The optimization of the design parameters of the compressor proposed was conducted by the Taguchi method. This study found that the piston diameter ratio was the dominating factor accounting for more than 80% of the contribution to the mass delivered, power consumption and specific energy consumption. The optimal design parameters were obtained as 0.7 for the piston diameter ratio, 0.5 for the stroke diameter ratio of Piston A and 0.1 for the trajectory parameter. Under the optimal design parameters, the specific energy consumption was obtained as 1563.38 kJ/kg.