Event
- Event ID
- 814
- Quality
- Description
Follow a leak in a seal of a heat exchanger (metal-covered asbestos) a fire occurred in a reforming process.
The hydrogen-rich mixture caused spontaneous ignition. The fire lasted 30 minutes.
The accident followed a series of various start / stops.An annealing treatment had to be carried out on 2 points that had been watered during the incident.
- Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Hydrogen Release and Ignition
- Nature of the consequences
- fire
- Macro-region
- Europe
- Country
- France
- Date
- Component involved
- heat exchanger (generic)
- Failure mode
- rupture
- Initiating cause
- unknown
- Root causes
- Date entry in HIAD
- 01/01/2020
Facility
- Application
- Petrochemical industry
- Sub-application
- catalytic reforming process
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
heat exchanger
- Process temperature range [C]
- Very high temperature (500°C to 1000°C)
- Process pressure range [MPa]
- medium pressure (2 to 10 MPa)
- Location type
- Open
- Location
- industrial area
- Operational condition
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Post-event summary
An annealing treatment had to be carried out on 2 points that had been watered during the incident.
- Emergency action
The fire lasted 30 minutes. The accident was a consecutive series of start / stops.
In-depth data
- Release type
- gas
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 (mainly)
- Probable IGNITION SOURCE
References
- Sources categories
- ARIA
- Reference & weblink
ARIA data base event no. 26619
https://www.aria.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/accident/26619/
(accessed October 2025)
