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Clean Hydrogen Partnership

CGH2 tube trailer roll-over

Event

Event ID
414
Quality
Description
A compressed hydrogen trailer-tractor overturned on a highway. The vehicle left the road on Sunday afternoon for unknown reasons, broke through the guardrail and tipped over about six meters from the motorway, lying on the side. The trailer was carrying nine tubes, not completely full. The sources report a value of the total load of 1200 – 1500 litres of hydrogen.
The valves, which were secured by special protective devices, were not damaged in the accident, and not loss of containment occurred.
The emergency services closed one lane and released the hydrogen to flow out in a controlled manner. The work lasted several hours. The truck was up righted and recovered with a crane in the evening.
Event Initiating system
Classification of the physical effects
No Hydrogen Release
Nature of the consequences
Macro-region
Europe
Country
Switzerland
Date
Main component involved?
Cgh2 Tube Trailer
How was it involved?
No Release
Initiating cause
Impact, Rollover, Crash
Root causes
Root CAUSE analysis
INITIATING CAUSE was a traffic accident. In absence of information on drivers and driver behaviours, the ROOT CAUSE can be attributed generically to a human error (wrong maneuvre)

Facility

Application
Hydrogen Transport And Distribution
Sub-application
CGH2 tube trailer
Hydrogen supply chain stage
Hydrogen Transport (No additional details provided)
All components affected
roll over
Location type
Open
Operational condition
Description of the facility/unit/process/substances
DESCRIPTION
It is unclear if the value provided for the hydrogen inventory refers to the volume of the gas at standards condition, or to the volume of the tubes which were containing hydrogen. In the former case, a negligible amount of 0.14 kg of hydrogen is calculated. In the latter case, approximately 21 kg. The second option is more credible, because one does not need 'several hours' to relase 140 g.

Emergency & Consequences

Number of injured persons
1
Number of fatalities
0
Currency
Euro
Property loss (onsite)
100000
Post-event summary
The driver suffered minor injuries and was taken to hospital for observation.
e total damage was initially estimated at around 100,000 euros.

Lesson Learnt

Lesson Learnt

It did not come to an accidental release, what suggest that the trailer design was enough robust to guarantee that the tubes remained in place during roll-over. it also helped the fact that the collision with the ground did not involve the rear of the trailer, which is the most sensitive part to mechanical collision.

Event Nature

Release type
gas
Involved substances (% vol)
H2 100%
Released amount
21
Presumed ignition source
No release

References

Reference & weblink

News from the online news Volksfreunde.de<br />
https://www.feuerwehr-schweich.de/berichte/586.pdf<br />
(Accessed December 2014)

News from the online news WELT<br />
https://www.welt.de/newsticker/news3/rp/article114906716/Gefahrguttrans… <br />
(Accessed December 2014)

JRC assessment