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Clean Hydrogen Partnership

LH2 tanker collision without release

Event

Event ID
455
Quality
Description

A liquid hydrogen tanker was traveling west bound on a highway, when adverse weather conditions (snow and wind) caused a brief "whiteout". To avoid a group of vehicles stopped in front of the trailer, the driver determined an evasive action by going off on the shoulder. When the tanker left the road, it made contact with the tail end of an unoccupied other vehicle and a high packed snow bank. Once stopped, 6 to 10 other vehicles hit the tanker, but no hydrogen was released.

Event Initiating system
Classification of the physical effects
No Hydrogen Release
Nature of the consequences
Macro-region
North America
Country
United States
Date
Component involved
LH2 tank (road tanker)
Failure mode
damage, no release
Initiating cause
impact, rollover, crash
Root CAUSE analysis

The INITIAL and ROOT CAUSE was a road accident, caused by a human error, without participation of the hydrogen system.

Root causes
Date entry in HIAD
01/01/2019

Facility

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

tanker rear

Process temperature range [C]
cryogenic temperature (below -50°C)
Process pressure range [MPa]
low to medium pressure (below 2 MPa)
Location type
Open
Location
highway or similar
Operational condition
Pre-event occurrences

Snow and wind on the highway

Emergency & Consequences

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

Damage unknown.

Emergency action

none

In-depth data

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

References

Sources categories
PHMSA
Reference & weblink

IncidentI-2011030516 of the US Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration PHMSA:
https://portal.phmsa.dot.gov/analytics/saw.dll?Portalpages&PortalPath=%…
(accessed September 2024)