Skip to main content
Clean Hydrogen Partnership

collision of a LH2 trailer

Event

Event ID
1118
Quality
Description

Driver lost control of vehicle ran off highway on right side into wooded area. The front vessel pressure gauge was knocked off the trailer tank. A small amount of gaseous hydrogen was vented until the gauge shut off valve was closed.

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
gauge/instrument (connection)
Failure mode
rupture, no ignition
Initiating cause
impact, rollover, crash
Root CAUSE analysis

INITIATING CAUSE was a traffic accident.
In absence of information on driver, the ROOT CAUSE is attributed generically to a human error (wrong manoeuvre).

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

Auxiliary Valve; pressure gauge

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

Damage after crash

Emergency & Consequences

Number of fatalities
0
Number of injured persons
0
Currency
US$
Property loss (onsite)
95.010
Post-event summary

The major loss was probably related to the trailer/truck crash damages. Approximately 200 kg of hydrogen were released.

Emergency action

The emergency was quickly ended by closing the valve connecting the pressure gauge and the LH2 tank. Although not stated, it can be assumed that this operation was performed by the driver.

In-depth data

Release type
gas
Involved substances (% vol)
H2 100%
Released amount (kg)
200.58970476911
Probable IGNITION SOURCE

References

Sources categories
PHMSA
Reference & weblink

Incident I-2002101097 of the US Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration PHMSA:
https://portal.phmsa.dot.gov/analytics/saw.dll?Portalpages&PortalPath=%…
(accessed September 2024)