Event
- Event ID
- 615
- Quality
- Description
A crack occurred in a storage tank (300 kg of hydrogen) releasing gaseous hydrogen to atmosphere. The vapour cloud exploded with an apparent centre of explosion 9 m above ground, and a energy equivalent to 9 to 18 kg of TNT.
- Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Hydrogen Release and Ignition
- Nature of the consequences
- Macro-region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Date
- Component involved
- CGH2 tank (stationary)
- Failure mode
- rupture & ignition
- Initiating cause
- unknown
- Root CAUSE analysis
The INITIATING cause of the release has been the cracking of the tank. Nothing is known on the cracking cause. It could be maintenance and inspection failure, or design failure in the case of hydrogen metal attack.
- Root causes
- Unknown
- Date entry in HIAD
- 01/01/2020
Facility
- Application
- Hydrogen production
- Sub-application
- storage tank
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
storage tank
- Process pressure range [MPa]
- unknown
- Location type
- Unknown
- Location
- unknown
- Operational condition
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Currency
- US$
- Property loss (onsite)
- 4.600.000
- Post-event summary
The consequences were 4.6 million of dollars of damage and 6 month of down time.
According to Lenoir et al (see reference) The vapour cloud exploded with an apparent centre of explosion 9 m above ground , and an energy equivalent to 9 to 18 kg of TNT.
Lesson Learnt
- Lesson Learnt
The event description does not provide enough information to deduce a .
Some general conclusions on the physical phenomena underlying the explosion have been suggested by E. Oran 2020 (see references).
They assessed this and similar hydrogen explosions as "...air blasts in turbulent clouds ignited very soon after release from containment."
"...there is no doubt that these were intense VPE's. It seems that the natural buoyancy of these gases does not favour the development of sufficiently large flammable clouds in open space. "
In-depth data
- Release type
- gas
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- Released amount (kg)
- 300
- Probable IGNITION SOURCE
- Explosion type
- Deflagration
References
- Sources categories
- Scientific article
- Reference & weblink
Extract from Leonoir and Davenport, Survey of Vapor Cloud Explosions: Second Update, Process Safety Progress, 12 (1993) 12-33.
Leonoir and Davenport, Survey of Vapor Cloud Explosions: Second Update, Process Safety Progress, 12 (1993) 12-33.
