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Clean Hydrogen Partnership

Fall of gas cylinder

Event

Event ID
31
Quality
Description

This incident consisted in the dropping of a gas cylinder and the release of its content due to stress corrosion

Event Initiating system
Classification of the physical effects
Unignited Hydrogen Release
Nature of the consequences
leak no ignition
Macro-region
Europe
Country
Netherlands
Date
Component involved
CGH2 cylinder(s)
Failure mode
leak, no ignition
Initiating cause
impact, rollover, crash
Root CAUSE analysis

The INITIATING CAUSE was the accidental dropping of a CGH2 cylinders.

A CONTRIBUTING FACTOR is attributed by this very brief report to the degradation of the load-bearing capacity of the cylinder due to stress corrosion. Although not mentioned, it would be plausible to assume that this degradation was hydrogen-assisted.

The ROOT CAUSE could be a combination of a human error causing the dropping and lack of inspection on the integrity of the cylinder. Since the conditions under which the cylinder was transported are unknown, it is impossible to drawn conclusion on the contribution of job-related factors.

Root causes
Date entry in HIAD
28/02/2009

Facility

Application
Hydrogen stationary storage
Sub-application
GH2 storage
Hydrogen supply chain stage
All components affected

gas cylinder

Process temperature range [C]
ambient temperature (-50°C to +50°C)
Location type
Semiconfined
Location
unknown
Operational condition

Emergency & Consequences

Number of fatalities
0
Number of injured persons
2
Post-event summary

The hydrogen released did not ignited, but injuries occurred because of flying debris caused by the internal pressure.

In-depth data

Release type
gas
Involved substances (% vol)
H2 100%
Release temperature [°C]
25
Probable IGNITION SOURCE

References

Sources categories
Scientific article
Reference & weblink

M. Kreiser, G. Fröhlich, H. Eichert, A.Schatz,
IKE Universität Stuttgart ISSN 0173-6892, April 1994
Analyse von Störfällen mit Wasserstoff in bisherigen Anwendungsbereichen mit besonderer Berücksichtigung von LH2"

Bockholts and Koehorst, 1992