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Clean Hydrogen Partnership

Failure on the pump of a LH2 tanker

Event

Event ID
405
Quality
Description

A dual phase hydrogen tanker was expected to refill the storage of a refuelling station for buses. Due to the failure of a bolt of the tanker pump, the refuelling could not take place. This resulted is that buses were unable to fuel for 3 days and loss of operations during this window. The faulty bolt was replaced.

Event Initiating system
Classification of the physical effects
No Hydrogen Release
Nature of the consequences
Macro-region
Europe
Country
United Kingdom
Date
Component involved
cryogenic pump
Failure mode
rupture, no ignition
Initiating cause
material degradation (generic)
Root CAUSE analysis

A breakdown on the liquid to gas elements on the dual phase hydrogen trailer, resulting from a bolt failure on the pump

Root causes
Date entry in HIAD
01/01/2017

Facility

Application
Hydrogen transport and distribution
Sub-application
LH2 tanker
Hydrogen supply chain stage
All components affected

LH2 pump, bolt

Process temperature range [C]
cryogenic temperature (below -50°C)
Process pressure range [MPa]
low to medium pressure (below 2 MPa)
Location type
Open
Location
unknown
Operational condition

Emergency & Consequences

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

The tanker was expected to deliver hydrogen to top up the gaseous hydrogen storage over the weekend. Due to the failure, the delivery could not take place.
Because of the lack of fuel in the storage, corresponding approximately to six fills, it was decided to keep the fuel cell buses out of service until a new dual phase hydrogen trailer arrived. This caused lack of service for two days. Buses returned to service once it was confirmed that a new dual phase hydrogen tanker would be arriving in time for fuelling .

In-depth data

Release type
no release
Released amount (kg)
0
Probable IGNITION SOURCE

References

Sources categories
Investigation report
Reference & weblink

Provided to JRC by the operator of the facility (confidential)