Prioritising Functional Characteristics for Maritime Liquid Hydrogen Storage and Transportation Using the House of Quality

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Abstract
This study addresses the need to prioritise functional characteristics for safe and feasible maritime liquid hydrogen (LH2) storage and transportation during early-stage system development. Quality Function Deployment (QFD) was applied through a House of Quality (HoQ) to map seven techno-socio-economic key performance indicator (KPI) categories against seven system-level functional characteristics for the LH2CRAFT concept. Survey respondents rated requirement importance, relationship strength, and implementation difficulty; normalised technical importance and difficulty scores were then combined using an equally weighted Multi-Attribute Utility Theory (MAUT) model. In this formulation, implementation difficulty was treated as a development criticality criterion indicating technical challenge, uncertainty, and validation needs rather than ease of implementation. The resulting scores represent stakeholder-informed development priorities and perceived areas of challenge; they do not provide empirical evidence of technical performance or validate one functional characteristic as superior to another. Cargo pressure and temperature control, material selection, and efficient design and implementation formed a shared high-priority development tier. This interpretation is supported by the close spacing of the prioritisation scores and the overlap observed in the underlying respondent assessments. Environmental mitigation measures received comparatively low prioritisation scores, suggesting that respondents viewed environmental performance mainly as an outcome of resolving core containment, safety, and implementation challenges. The framework provides a transparent basis for allocating design effort and planning validation activities, while the findings are interpreted alongside the relevant literature, regulatory requirements, classification guidance, and safety standards.
Funding Information
  • European Commission (101111972)
  • UK Research and Innovation (10082044)
  • UK Research and Innovation (10070575)

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