Event
- Event ID
- 33
- Quality
- Description
Compressed hydrogen was released from a storage system due to the rupture of a Bourdon-type pressure gauge.
- 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
- gauge/instrument
- Failure mode
- rupture, no ignition
- Initiating cause
- unknown
- Root causes
- Unknown
- Date entry in HIAD
- 28/02/2009
Facility
- Application
- Petrochemical industry
- Sub-application
- CGH2 stationary storage
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
hydrogen storage, pressure gauge
- Location type
- Unknown
- Location
- unknown
- Operational condition
- Description of the facility/unit/process/substances
DESCRIPTION OF THE BOURDON PRINCIPLE FOR PRESSURE MEASUREMENTS
“A Bourdon pressure gauge uses the principle that a flattened tube tends to straighten or regain its circular form in cross-section when pressurized. (A party horn illustrates this principle.) … The strain of the material of the tube is magnified by forming the tube into a C shape or even a helix, such that the entire tube tends to straighten out or uncoil elastically as it is pressurized… Bourdon tubes measures gauge pressure, relative to ambient atmospheric pressure, as opposed to absolute pressure; vacuum is sensed as a reverse motion.”
[from Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressure_measurement#Bourdon_gauge , accessed November2025)]
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Number of injured persons
- 1
Lesson Learnt
- Lesson Learnt
Another case of hydrogen accidental releases due to rupture of the bourdon tube are HIAD_ 428, for which it is also known that the wrong choice of the type of steel used for the tube caused its hydrogen embrittlement and eventually its failure.
In-depth data
- Release type
- gas
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- Probable IGNITION SOURCE
References
- Sources categories
- Zalosh
- Reference & weblink
Table II 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)originally in
M. Kreiser, G. Fröhlich, H. Eichert, A.Schatz,
IKE Universität Stuttgart ISSN 0173-6892, April 1994
Analyse von Störfällen mit Wasserstoff in bisherigen Anwendungsbereichen mit besonderer Berücksichtigung von LH2"
