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Clean Hydrogen Partnership

Rollover of a CGH2 tube trailer

Event

Event ID
1105
Quality
Description

A truck loaded with hydrogen came off the road on, crashed into a guardrail and overturned on the embankment.
The driver was taken to hospital with minor injuries. No other cars were involved in the accident.
The tanks were almost empty, with only a residual non-quantified amount of hydrogen.
A specialised company was called for the removal of the trailer.

Event Initiating system
Classification of the physical effects
No Hydrogen Release
Nature of the consequences
Macro-region
Europe
Country
Austria
Date
Component involved
CGH2 tube (trailer)
Failure mode
damage, no release
Initiating cause
impact, rollover, crash
Root CAUSE analysis

INITIATING CAUSE was a traffic accident.
The policy could not determine the cause of loss of control of the trailer. Therefore , in absence of information on driver, the ROOT CAUSE is attributed generically to a human error (wrong manoeuvre).

Root causes
Date entry in HIAD
21/06/2024

Facility

Application
Hydrogen transport and distribution
Sub-application
CGH2 tube trailer
Hydrogen supply chain stage
All components affected

trailer

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
highway or similar
Operational condition

Emergency & Consequences

Number of fatalities
0
Number of injured persons
1
Property loss (onsite)
0
Post-event summary

The driver was light injured by the crash.
The damage was estimated several 100 000 Euros.

Emergency action

The traffic was diverted and the road remained completely closed until further notice.
A specialist company took care of recovering the hazardous goods.

Lesson Learnt

Lesson Learnt

The rollover did not caused hydrogen release. This speak for a sound design of the compressed hydrogen storage system. From the photos does not result any evidence of damage to the tubes. A much more sever test would have been a crash affecting the rear of the tubes.
It is unclear if the statement regarding no leak is based on measurement or on visual inspection of the pressure control system.

In-depth data

Release type
gas
Involved substances (% vol)
H2 100%
Release temperature [°C]
25
Probable IGNITION SOURCE

References

Sources categories
News
Reference & weblink