Event
- Event ID
- 1116
- Quality
- Description
A LH2 trailer had delivered hydrogen to a customer and on the way was heading back to base, when the tank pressure rose from 40 psi to 128 psi. The drivers stopped at a truck parking place and called the alarm number. The local police department gave permission to release pressure from the trailer. The fire fighters were called to stand by. The pressure was released without problems.
- 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
- LH2 tank (road tanker)
- Failure mode
- rupture, no ignition
- Initiating cause
- over-pressurisation (wrong operation)
- Root CAUSE analysis
The INITIAL CAUSE was over-pressurisation of the LH2 tank, which caused an intervention of the drivers to reduce pressure.
BY using as proxy several similar events, ROOT CAUSE could be tentatively attributed to the failure to 'stabilise' the pressure of the tanker after delivery and before leaving customer's site. This is a procedure aiming at avoiding over-pressurisation by cold gaseous hydrogen during the return travel.- Root causes
- Date entry in HIAD
- 09/09/2024
Facility
- Application
- Hydrogen transport and distribution
- Sub-application
- LH2 tanker
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
Vent
- 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 driver had terminated the delivery of LH2 to a customer's site. It can be assumed that the trailer was (almost) empty.
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Currency
- US$
- Property loss (onsite)
- 0
- Post-event summary
A negligible amount of hydrogen was released.
- Emergency action
The emergency was quickly ended by the intervention of the drivers, who performed a manual pressure release operation.
In-depth data
- Release type
- gas
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- Probable IGNITION SOURCE
References
- Sources categories
- PHMSA
- Reference & weblink
Incident I-2001100429 of the US Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration PHMSA:
https://portal.phmsa.dot.gov/analytics/saw.dll?Portalpages&PortalPath=%…
(accessed September 2024)
