Event
- Event ID
- 98
- Quality
- Description
A hydrogen leak occurred on a flange located on a pipe coming from a hydrogen storage tank. The staff was confined and the Internal Operation Plan was launched. Helium was injected in the tank and an operator equipped with a breathing apparatus closed the valve between the tank and the leaking flange. No one was injured and no damages occurred.
- Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Unignited Hydrogen Release
- Nature of the consequences
- release, no ignition
- Macro-region
- Europe
- Country
- France
- Date
- Component involved
- flange (generic)
- Failure mode
- leak
- Initiating cause
- material degradation (generic)
- Root CAUSE analysis
INITIATING cause was a leaking flange.
- Root causes
- Date entry in HIAD
- 28/02/2009
Facility
- Application
- Non-road vehicles
- Sub-application
- aerospace/aviation components production
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
LH2 storage tank
- Process temperature range [C]
- cryogenic temperature (below -50°C)
- Process pressure range [MPa]
- low to medium pressure (below 2 MPa)
- Location type
- Unknown
- Location
- industrial area
- Operational condition
- Description of the facility/unit/process/substances
The ARIA report does not specify if it was a LH2 or CGH2 storage. Since they used the very expensive helium to purge the system, it can be assumed that the leak affected a LH2 tank. helium is the only inert gas which does not condense or freeze in presence of LH2 For the purging of a CGH2 tankat ambient temperature, nitrogen is usually used.
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Post-event summary
A continuous monitoring is made during the night.
- Emergency action
The staff was confined and the Internal Operation Plan launched. Helium was injected in the tank and an operator equipped with a breathing apparatus closed the valve between the tank and the leaking flange.
- Emergency evaluation
A computer simulation showed that in case of explosion the thermal and over-pressure damage would be limited to few meters.
In-depth data
- Release type
- gas
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- Release temperature [°C]
- 25
- Probable IGNITION SOURCE
References
- Sources categories
- ARIA
- Reference & weblink
Original description of the event in ARIA
