NREL is a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy

Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy

Operated by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC

This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy

Laboratory (NREL) at www.nrel.gov/publications.

Contract No. DE-AC36-08GO28308

CRADA Report

NREL/TP-5400-73475

April 2019

Tatsuno Coriolis Flow Meter 

Development Testing in High 

Pressure Hydrogen

Cooperative Research and Development 

Final Report

CRADA Number: CRD-16-601

NREL Technical Contact: Matthew Post
NREL is a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy

Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy

Operated by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC

This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy

Laboratory (NREL) at www.nrel.gov/publications.

Contract No. DE-AC36-08GO28308

National Renewable Energy Laboratory

15013 Denver West Parkway

Golden, CO 80401

303-275-3000 • www.nrel.gov

CRADA Report

NREL/TP-5400-73475

April 2019

Tatsuno Coriolis Flow Meter 

Development Testing in High Pressure 

Hydrogen

Cooperative Research and Development 

Final Report

CRADA Number: CRD-16-601

NREL Technical Contact: Matthew Post

Suggested Citation

Post, Matthew. 2019. Tatsuno Coriolis Flow Meter Development Testing in High Pressure 

Hydrogen: Cooperative Research and Development Final Report, CRADA Number 

CRD-16-601. Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory. NREL/TP-5400-73475.

https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy19osti/73475.pdf.
NOTICE

This work was authored by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, operated by Alliance for Sustainable 

Energy, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under Contract No. DE-AC36-08GO28308. Funding 

provided by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Vehicle 

Technologies Office. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of the DOE or the U.S. 

Government.

This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable 

Energy Laboratory (NREL) at www.nrel.gov/publications.

U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) reports produced after 1991 

and a growing number of pre-1991 documents are available 

free via www.OSTI.gov.

Cover Photos by Dennis Schroeder: (clockwise, left to right) NREL 51934, NREL 45897, NREL 42160, NREL 45891, NREL 48097, 

NREL 46526.

NREL prints on paper that contains recycled content.
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This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) at www.nrel.gov/publications. 

Cooperative Research and Development Final Report

Report Date: 9/19/18 

In accordance with Requirements set forth in the terms of the CRADA agreement, this document 

is the final CRADA report, including a list of Subject Inventions, to be forwarded to the DOE 

Office of Science and Technical Information as part of the commitment to the public to 

demonstrate results of federally funded research.

Parties to the Agreement: Hyundai America Technical Center, Inc. (HATCI)

CRADA number: CRD-16-601

CRADA Title: Fuel Cell Vehicle Infrastructure Research and Demonstration

Joint Work Statement Funding Table showing DOE commitment: 

Estimated Costs NREL Shared Resources

a/k/a Government In-Kind

Year 1 $ 100,000.00 

TOTALS $ 100,000.00 

Abstract of CRADA Work: 

In support of NREL’s mission, which includes preparing technologies and markets with “speed 

and scale,” HATCI will loan up to two fuel cell vehicles (collectively, the “vehicles”) to NREL. 

Operation of the vehicles enables NREL to provide education of the vehicle technology and 

research renewable hydrogen production, fueling equipment, and hydrogen energy system 

integration in real-world conditions and use. These vehicles provide an opportunity for NREL to 

evaluate the Hydrogen Infrastructure Testing & Research Facility (HITRF) using a variety of 

vehicle types, which provides a balanced portfolio of this technology and represents real world 

conditions more accurately.

Summary of Research Results: 

Throughout this project, HATCI provided NREL with two different fuel cell versions of the 

Hyundai Tucson to support ongoing research at the HITRF. Hyundai has released the Fuel Cell 

Tucson in limited markets within the United States, therefore the vehicles themselves are 

commercially available. NREL is doing research associated with fueling infrastructure reliability, 

optimization, and implementation. Having fuel cell vehicles on campus provides NREL 

researchers with real world fueling data into commercial vehicles that would otherwise need to 

be done only by simulation. The two vehicles were provided back-to-back without any overlap. 

The newer vehicle that replaced the first vehicle had the 2017 model year improvements. 
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This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) at www.nrel.gov/publications.

The majority of this project was intended for demonstration and data collection. Concurrent 

projects were impletmented to support Task #2, involving utilization of the shared resources 

described in this CRADA.

1) Hydrogen Fueling System Equipment Interaction

In the time that the vehicles were on campus, there were more than 90 fuelings into vehicles or 

the vehicle simulator which accounted for more than 300 kilograms of hydrogen dispensed. 

Projects that directly benefitted from having vehicles fuel at the dispenser include:

• Component Validation

• MC Method Validation

• Stack Test Bed Electrolysis Research

In figure 1, an example of data obtained from the vehicle fuelings is shown in which the Tucson 

is the second vehicle fueled. In this test sequence, two different fuel cell vehicles were fueled in 

succession which shows how fast light duty vehicles can be fueled with hydrogen. 

Figure 1: Vehicle fuelings at the HITRF performed on March 15, 2017.

NREL and Hyundai studied the differences in filling performance for SAE J2601 table-based 

and MC Formula dispensing protocols. Two fills were performed within 20 minutes of each 

other with both vehicles starting at the same pressure and same ambient temperature. The MC 

Formula dispensed 107 g more and completed the fill 15 seconds faster.

9:439:459:47

9:499:51

9:53

9:55

9:57

9:59

10:01

10:03

10:05

10:07

10:09

10:11

10:13

10:15

10:17

10:19

0

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

12000

psi

Vehicle Tank Pressure

D1_vtank_psi

Created: Mar-07-18 10:36 AM
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This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) at www.nrel.gov/publications.

Figure 2. Vehicle and dispenser data shown for a SAE J2601 T40 table-based fueling

Figure 3. Vehicle and station data shown for an MC Formula fill
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This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) at www.nrel.gov/publications.

2) Integrated Renewable Energy Station (IRES)

The hydrogen-based integrated Renewable Energy Station, capable of servicing many different 

needs beyond bhehicle fueling was not validated under this project. 

Due to lack of funding and other priorirtes, activities under this task were limited to the vehicles

using fuel made by simulated renewable electrolysis. The fueling of the vehicles provided data 

that fed into the analysis of potential station capacity. In connection with this, NREL determined 

that there is no standard method for calculating station capacity, and will need to perform further 

work in this area outside of the CRADA to accomplish this. 

This information did assist NREL in building a system that simulates multiple vechicle fuelings 

back to back and to understand how much hydrogen would be available in the station for a 

potential energy storage system. 

3) Driver Behavior

While the vehicles were on campus, NREL implemented a check-out system. After a short 

training, NREL employees could check out the vehicle and use it throughout the day for work

related or non-work related travel.

HATCI also had the vehicles outfitted with data loggers that transmitted vehicle use 

characteristics back to them. Other than times when the HITRF station was down for research 

and testing purposes, there were no instances of fueling being unavailable. There were also no 

instances of the vehicles running out of fuel in normal use.

Although originally planned, a survey to the staff to capture driver input was not administered 

under this CRADA.

4) Driving Performance Assessment

NREL researchers demonstrated mountain and high altitude driving conditions with a drive up to 

the continental divide and back. The car was fueled before and after the trip to show similarities 

to current gasoline fueling. The trip is documented in a video located here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0etWuZKY7w.

Instead of driver logs, drivers completed a survey via SurveyMonkey, which included name, 

number of people in vehicle, type of event, affiliation of non-NREL guests and odometer. 

Examples of usage documented by SurveyMonkey can be seen below. NREL employees used 

the car for on campus VIP tours and also took the vehicle to many high-profile events, and the 

vehicle was a great focal point for researchers to introduce people to hydrogen and fuel cell

vehicles. 
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This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) at www.nrel.gov/publications.

These events include:

• August 18, 2016 – Golden, CO – Executive Energy Leadership Academy August 

Meeting

• September 14, 2016 – Dacono, CO – Colorado Clean Cities 20th Anniversary Celebration

• September 14, 2016 – Boulder, CO – Boulder County Farmers Market National Drive 

Electric Celebration

• September 28, 2016 – Breckenridge, CO – Mountain Drive Demonstration

• October 3, 2016 – Denver, CO – National Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Day at the Capitol

• February 9, 2017 – Denver, CO – Alternative Fuels Program Kick-off & Stakeholder 

Meeting

• April 19, 2017 – Boulder, CO – National Alternative Fuel Vehicle Day ODYSSEY 2017

• July 13, 2017 – Golden, CO – NREL 40th Anniversary Staff and Family Celebration

• August 17, 2017 – Parker, CO – Cleantech Manufacturing Forum
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This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) at www.nrel.gov/publications. 

Having the vehicles on campus was a very valuable component of performing research on 

hydrogen fueling infrastructure. Fueling the commercially available vehicles provided a baseline 

for all other research performed in the HITRF. Being able to bring a commercially available fuel 

cell vehicle to outreach events also gave NREL researchers a talking point that couldn’t be 

reproduced by other means. 

Subject Inventions Listing: 

None 

ROI #:

None

Responsible Technical Contact at Alliance/NREL: 

Matthew Post

Name and Email Address of POC at Company:

Kevin Lee, kslee@hatci.com

DOE Program Office:

Fuel Cell Technologies 

This document contains NO confidential, protectable, or proprietary information.