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Clean Hydrogen Partnership

Event

Event ID
88
Quality
Description

A compressed hydrogen tube trailer overturned while travelling. One of the ten tubes released hydrogen, which ignited. The hydrogen in the other tubes released later.

Event Initiating system
Classification of the physical effects
Hydrogen Release and Ignition
Nature of the consequences
fire
Macro-region
North America
Country
United States
Date
Component involved
valve (generic)
Failure mode
rupture & ignition
Initiating cause
impact, rollover, crash
Root CAUSE analysis

The INITIATING CAUSE was rupture of a valve on one of the tube of a tube trailer.
The ROOT CAUSE was the loss of control of the vehicle.
The text in the source is unclear regarding the sequence of the incident following the development of a fire on one of the tube. Was the hydrogen release from the other tubes a manual intervention of the first responders, or automatically triggered by the increase of temperature due to the fire?

Root causes
Date entry in HIAD
20/01/2025

Facility

Application
Hydrogen transport and distribution
Sub-application
CGH2 tube trailer
Hydrogen supply chain stage
All components affected

piping

Process temperature range [C]
ambient temperature (-50°C to +50°C)
Process pressure range [MPa]
medium to high pressure (10 to 50 MPa)
Location type
Open
Location
highway or similar
Operational condition

Emergency & Consequences

Number of fatalities
0
Number of injured persons
2
Currency
US$
Property loss (onsite)
70.000

In-depth data

Release type
gas
Involved substances (% vol)
H2 100%
Release temperature [°C]
25
Probable IGNITION SOURCE

References

Sources categories
Zalosh
Reference & weblink

Extract from Table III of Appendix A of Zalosh and Short
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF HYDROGEN FIRE AND EXPLOSION INCIDENTS
Quarterly Report No. 2 for Period December 1, 1977 - February 28, 1978
https://www.osti.gov/biblio/6566131
(accessed September 2020)

Event incident I-1971110051 of the PHMSA database (Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, 1996),
https://portal.phmsa.dot.gov/analytics/saw.dll?Portalpages
(accessed September 2024)