Event
- Event ID
- 565
- Quality
- Description
Failure of an 8 inch steel outlet pipe from a gas heater which ruptured and allowed hydrogen to escape with ensuing rapid ignition.
- Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Hydrogen Release and Ignition
- Nature of the consequences
- fire
- Macro-region
- Europe
- Country
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Date
- Component involved
- heat exchanger (pipe)
- Failure mode
- internal explosion
- Initiating cause
- material degradation (generic)
- Root causes
- Unknown
- Date entry in HIAD
- 01/01/2020
Facility
- Application
- Petrochemical industry
- Sub-application
- Unspecified refinery process
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
gas heater outlet pipe
- Location type
- Unknown
- Location
- populated area
- Operational condition
- UNKNOWN
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Number of injured persons
- 0
Lesson Learnt
- Lesson Learnt
Rupture of hydrogen or process gases tubes in pre-heaters /heat-exchangers / fired heaters is a recurrent event up to recent times. This is not surprising, considering the high temperatures and pressures involved. The most common causes are materials degradations due to manufacturing defects and operative stresses. Ruptures tend to happen during operative transients, which may cause over-heating due to reduction of flows. When the releases occur also in presence of naked flames, as in fired heaters, which use conventional fuels burners, ignition and explosion in the confined of the heater box is ensured. Nevertheless, due to sturdy heater constructions, it rarely happens that damage extends to the outside environment.
In-depth data
- Release type
- gas
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- Probable IGNITION SOURCE
References
- Sources categories
- ICHEME
- Reference & weblink
Event nr 3300 of the UK database ICHEME in PDF format
https://www.icheme.org/knowledge/safety-centre/resources/accident-data/
(accessed October 2020)
