Skip to main content
Clean Hydrogen Partnership

Fire from a CGH2 tube trailer just loaded

Event

Event ID
219
Quality
Description

A compressed hydrogen tube trailer was fully loaded and parked in the sun. The heat caused a pressure build-up, so that a burst disc failed prematurely venting hydrogen, which ignited.
13,360 cu ft (approximately 32 kg) of hydrogen were released.

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
TPRD
Failure mode
premature activation & venting
Initiating cause
over-heating
Root CAUSE analysis

The INITIATING CAUSE was the premature failure of the burst dis.

A CONTRIBUTING CAUSE was the increase of hydrogen pressure in the tubes of the trailer caused by heat flow from direct sun exposure
The fact that the a common environmental condition such as sun exposure was enough to cause a disc to one, suggests CONTIBUTING or ROOT CAUSE possibly related to (i) not fully respecting operative instructions , or (ii) lack of attention to the over-heating aspects in the operative instructions (shortcoming in accidental scenarios setting and risk assessment).

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

burst disc

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
industrial area
Operational condition

Emergency & Consequences

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

Lesson Learnt

Lesson Learnt

The safety procedure (automatic pressure-relief due to over-pressurisation) worked as designed, preventing the pressure inside the tubes to increase beyond the maximal allowed values.
Although the source does not provide any detail, the fact that only 32 kg of hydrogen were released suggests that only one of the tube vented and emptied, while the others did not experienced a pressure excess. (30-35 kg is the usual capacity of a steel tube used typically for the transport of hydrogen in the period when the event occurred).

In-depth data

Release type
gas
Involved substances (% vol)
H2 100%
Released amount (kg)
32
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)

Incident I-1975110755 of the US Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration PHMSA:
https://portal.phmsa.dot.gov/analytics/saw.dll?Portalpages&PortalPath=%…
(accessed September 2024)