Event
- Event ID
- 547
- Quality
- Description
A liquid hydrogen tanker had just departed from the home terminal, when the driver notice vapours coming from the curb side of the trailer control cabinet. The driver stopped the vehicle at the closest weight station and discovered that the vapours were coming from the body of the pressure relief valve. A response team from the home terminal discovered that the plug in the body of the relief valve was missing. The relief valve was isolated from the system and the trailer was safely returned to the home terminal, where the missing plug was replaced. The trailer was tested for leaks and released for the next scheduled trip (11 hr).
- Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Unignited Hydrogen Release
- Nature of the consequences
- leak no ignition
- Macro-region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Date
- Component involved
- PRD (valve)
- Failure mode
- premature activation & venting
- Initiating cause
- inadequate or no maintenance / calibration
- Root CAUSE analysis
The INITIAL CAUSE of the leak was a defective valve (the body of the valve was missing).
The ROOT CAUSE seems to be the error in the valve installation/maintenance.- Root causes
- Date entry in HIAD
- 01/01/2020
Facility
- Application
- Hydrogen transport and distribution
- Sub-application
- LH2 tanker
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
PRV
- 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
The LH2 tanker had just departed full from the home terminal
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Currency
- US$
- Property loss (onsite)
- 300
- Post-event summary
A negligible amount of hydrogen was released.
- Emergency action
The driver stopped the vehicle at the closest weight station. A response team from the home terminal intervened, isolated the relief valve and the tanker was safely returned to the home terminal, where the missing plug was replaced.
In-depth data
- Release type
- gas
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- Probable IGNITION SOURCE
References
- Sources categories
- PHMSA
- Reference & weblink
Incident I-1998020791 of the US Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration PHMSA:
https://portal.phmsa.dot.gov/analytics/saw.dll?Portalpages&PortalPath=%…
(accessed September 2024)
