Event
- Event ID
- 397
- Quality
- Description
During a leak check of a flash point material testing chamber, the chamber was inadvertently over-pressurised with GH2. The glass port in the door burst, causing damage to the chamber and to the facility.
- Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Unignited Hydrogen Release
- Nature of the consequences
- Macro-region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Date
- -
- Component involved
- reactor / oven / furnace / test chamber
- Failure mode
- internal explosion
- Initiating cause
- over-pressurisation (wrong operation)
- Root CAUSE analysis
The ROOT CAUSE was design deficiencies in the test chamber and installation. The pressure source was 150 psig (11 bara) and the chamber working pressure was 16.5 psia (0.4 bara). There was no pressure regulator on the source and no pressure relief valve on the chamber. The pressure gauge was installed between two chambers with shutoff valves to each, thus allowing erroneous pressure readings under dynamic pressure conditions. CONTRIBUTING CAUSE was a failure to follow procedures in checking leaks.
- Root causes
- Date entry in HIAD
- 01/11/2025
Facility
- Application
- Laboratory / R&D
- Sub-application
- material testing
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
testing chamber
- Process temperature range [C]
- ambient temperature (-50°C to +50°C)
- Location type
- Confined
- Location
- unknown
- Operational condition
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Number of injured persons
- 0
In-depth data
- Release type
- gas
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- Release temperature [°C]
- 25
- Release pressure [MPa]
- 0.04
- Probable IGNITION SOURCE
- Explosion type
References
- Sources categories
- ORDIN
- Reference & weblink
Mishap no 57 in
P. L. Ordin, Review of hydrogen accidents and incidents in NASA operations, 1974, NASA TM X-71565
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19740020344Hankinson and Lowesmith, Qualitative Risk Assessment of Hydrogen Liquefaction, Storage and Transportation, FCH JU project IDEALHY, Deliverable 3.10 (2013)
confidential
(accessed October 2025)Lowesmith et al., Safety issues of the liquefaction, storage and transportation of liquid hydrogen: An analysis of incidents and HAZIDS, Int. J. Hydrogen energy (2014) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2014.08.002
