Event
- Event ID
- 96
- Quality
- Description
Safety slug in the vent pipe of a hydrogen trailer failed, damaging the pipe and causing a hydrogen leak. The following fire damaged several other trailers.
- 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
- PRD (generic)
- Failure mode
- premature activation & venting
- Initiating cause
- unknown
- Root CAUSE analysis
Despite the lack of details, INITIATING CAUSE was a damage of the safety valve, causing a leak.
The fact that the fire damaged additional trailers hint at a ROOT CAUSE related to a lack of proper risk assessment when designing the operations, which did not consider the possible escalation from too nearly parked trailers without fire barriers.- Root causes
- Unknown
- 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
vent pipe
- 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
- UNKNOWN
- Description of the facility/unit/process/substances
The meaning of the term 'safety slug' is unclear. A slug flow, in liquid flow engineering, is a "is a phenomenon that occurs in pipelines carrying gas and liquid mixtures. It involves the intermittent movement of slugs—large pockets of liquid—that can lead to pressure fluctuations, flow disruptions, and potential equipment damage... Slug catchers are specialized devices designed to capture and manage liquid slugs in pipelines." Source: https://www.everyeng.com/blog/ff4ac270)
It can only be hypothesised that a safety slug is a system preventing slug to further block the gas flow in the vent piping. However, why a safety slug would be necessary on a pipe of a hydrogentrailer is unexplicable.
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Currency
- US$
- Property loss (onsite)
- 100.000
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-1973010239 of the PHMSA database (Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, 1996),
https://portal.phmsa.dot.gov/analytics/saw.dll?Portalpages
(accessed September 2024)