The compression of hydrogen, particularly for use in the automotive industry and with fuel cells in general, presents technical challenges to be carefully evaluated in the design and manufacturing of compression equipment. The high fugacity and flammability of hydrogen, its effects on the characteristics of materials, along with the features of the service, with pressures up to 100 MPa and no lubrication as often required by the process, impose a careful evaluation of operating conditions, a proper selection of materials and an optimized configuration of compressor elements and seals.The special efforts in the design and manufacturing of compression equipment are based on accurate stress analysis, along with temperature distribution evaluation and the understanding of the behavior of materials versus hydrogen attack and hydrogen embrittlement phenomena.Careful quality checks to detect defects that may evolve during the operation are necessary, along with proper seal material and arrangement, to withstand severe operating conditions, and efficient containment of leaks through special buffering/recovery systems.Advanced calculation codes to simulate operating conditions in terms of stress, heat generation and transmission shall be adopted, including Finite Element and Conjugate Heat Transfer Methodologies.The Fracture Mechanics approach is mandatory to evaluate the behavior of material defects in terms of threshold dimension and possible propagation. Adequate design of components shall be implemented to contain the stress profile in order to allow the use of relatively low-strength materials, less sensible to hydrogen embrittlement. The paper provides an overview of the above criteria with recommendations for an effective design.

‍***This preprint has not undergone peer review or anypost-submission improvements or corrections. The Version of Record of this contribution is published in 13th International Conference on Compressors and Their Systems - Conference proceedings © 2024 and is available online at https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-42663-6_58