Event
- Event ID
- 73
- Quality
- Description
While on a highway, the driver of a liquid hydrogen tanker was notified that vapour was coming out of the back of the trailer. The driver pulled into a safe haven to investigate. After opening the rear cabinet doors, the driver noticed the liquid hydrogen was leaking by the fire control and manual valve for the fill and withdrawal valve. The product was slowly dripping down onto the cabinet floor and vaporising.
The driver could see no visible cause for the product passing through the valves as they were tight. There was no other choice than safely venting the product to the atmosphere. The tanker returned to the home terminal for evaluation.
It was found that the fire control valve failed to close completely due to a piece of ice partially blocking the valve seat. Once that the ice was removed, the valve worked properly. The tanker was returned to service.- Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Unignited Hydrogen Release
- Nature of the consequences
- leak no ignition
- Macro-region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Date
- Component involved
- valve (fill)
- Failure mode
- leak, no ignition
- Initiating cause
- ice formation
- Root CAUSE analysis
The INITIATING CAUSE of the liquid hydrogen spilling was the block of a valve in partially open position due to ice formation.
The ROOT CAUSE was probably related to the failing to perform properly the procedure at the moment of the filling of the tanker.- Root causes
- Date entry in HIAD
- 31/12/2024
Facility
- Application
- Hydrogen transport and distribution
- Sub-application
- LH2 tanker
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
fill & withdrawal valve,
fire control valve- 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
- 0
- Currency
- US$
- Property loss (onsite)
- 170
- Post-event summary
The source report only a partial loss of the hydrogen content.
- Emergency action
The driver vented safely the hydrogen to the atmosphere.
In-depth data
- Release type
- liquid
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- Probable IGNITION SOURCE
References
- Sources categories
- PHMSA
- Reference & weblink
Event incident ID I-1992020141 of the PHMSA database (Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, 1996),
https://portal.phmsa.dot.gov/analytics/saw.dll?Portalpages
(accessed September 2024)
