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Clean Hydrogen Partnership

Collison between a car and a LH2 tanker

Event

Event ID
111
Quality
Description

A car crashed into a liquid hydrogen tanker. The piping and the inner and outer shell of the liquid hydrogen tanker were destroyed, resulting in a fire.

 Nothing is reported on the quantity of hydrogen released and the type of fire, if it was a liquid spill or a gaseous release, if an escalation occurred and which type of emergency management strategy was put in place. 

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
LH2 tank (road tanker)
Failure mode
rupture
Initiating cause
impact, rollover, crash
Root CAUSE analysis

The INITIATING was the impact on the LH2 tank by the car crash.

In absence of information on driving conditions, the ROOT CAUSE is attributed generically to a human error (wrong manoeuvre).

Root causes
Date entry in HIAD
20/01/2025

Facility

Application
Hydrogen transport and distribution
Sub-application
H2 delivery to customers
Hydrogen supply chain stage
All components affected

LH2 road tanker

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

Emergency & Consequences

Number of fatalities
0
Number of injured persons
2
Currency
US$
Property loss (onsite)
128.000

In-depth data

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

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-1972100100 of the PHMSA database (Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, 1996), https://portal.phmsa.dot.gov/analytics/saw.dll?Portalpages (accessed September 2024)