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Clean Hydrogen Partnership

Fire - hydrogen

Event

Event ID
630
Quality
Description

At a rocket engine testing facility, a combustion experiment of the pre-burner (gas generator for driving the turbopump) was being conducted, before testing the turbopump. The pre-burner is the gas generator for driving the turbine.
In the course of the experiment, hydrogen gas leaked from the flange of the supply pipe connecting the high-pressure hydrogen storage and supply facility and the pre- burner and was ignited by the igniting element of the pre-burner.

Event Initiating system
Classification of the physical effects
Hydrogen Release and Ignition
Nature of the consequences
fire
Macro-region
Asia
Country
Japan
Date
Component involved
flange (bolts)
Failure mode
leak & ignition
Initiating cause
manufacturing defect/error
Root CAUSE analysis

The INITIATING CAUSE was the failure of a flange due to a defective bolt.
The post-incident investigation of the bolt of the flange, suggested a manufacturing defect as the cause of failure.

Root causes
Date entry in HIAD
01/05/2025

Facility

Application
Non-road vehicles
Sub-application
Aerospace
Hydrogen supply chain stage
All components affected

bolt, flange

Location type
Unknown
Location
industrial area
Operational condition

Emergency & Consequences

Number of fatalities
0
Number of injured persons
0

In-depth data

Release type
gas
Involved substances (% vol)
H2 100%
Probable IGNITION SOURCE

References

Sources categories
KHK
Reference & weblink

High Pressure Gas Accident Cases Database of the KHK (High Pressure Gas Safety Association):
https://www.khk.or.jp/public_information/incident_investigation/hpg_inc…
(accessed May 2025)

The first entry in HIAD was coming from RISCAD, which is now closed.