Event
- Event ID
- 316
- Quality
- Description
- A liquid hydrogen system exploded and burned during fill operations due to inadequate purging after the previous operation.
[Ordin, NASA (1974)] - Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Unignited Hydrogen Release
- Nature of the consequences
- Leak No Ignition (No additional details provided)
- Macro-region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Date
- -
- Main component involved?
- Lh2 Storage Vessel
- How was it involved?
- Internal Explosion (H2-Air Mixture)
- Initiating cause
- Inadequate Or No Purge
- Root causes
- Root CAUSE analysis
- The IMMEDIATE CAUSE was the explosion of non-further specified LH2 storage.
Purging had been accomplished with gaseous nitrogen but had not been repeated with gaseous helium. Hydrogen and air were still in the system.
The ROOT CAUSE was only partial of the purging procedure before filling.
Facility
- Application
- Non-Road Vehicles
- Sub-application
- Aerospace
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- Hydrogen Transfer (No additional details provided)
- All components affected
- LH2 tank
- Location type
- Unknown
- Operational condition
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Number of fatalities
- 0
Lesson Learnt
- Lesson Learnt
- Liquid hydrogen storage systems require purging with helium, due to the risk of liquefaction (or even solidification) of nitrogen, which is the most common inert gas used for purging gaseous systems. For a short summary of the various purging approaches, see H2TOOLS platform at https://h2tools.org/bestpractices/operating-procedures/purging#:~:text=Helium%20is%20used%20because%20at,another%20part%20of%20the%20system.
Why in this event the helium purge was omitted is unknown.
Event Nature
- Release type
- gas
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- Presumed ignition source
- No ignition
References
- Reference & weblink
Mishap no 25 in <br />
P. L. Ordin, Review of hydrogen accidents and incidents in NASA operations, 1974, NASA TM X-71565<br />
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19740020344Lowesmith 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
Hankinson and Lowesmith, Qualitative Risk Assessment of Hydrogen Liquefaction, Storage and Transportation, FCH JU project IDEALHY, Deliverable 3.10 (2013)<br />
confidential<br />
(accessed October 2025)Hankinson and Lowesmith, HAZIDs for Hydrogen Liquefaction, Storage and Transportation , FCH JU project IDEALHY, Deliverable 3.11 (2013)<br />
https://www.idealhy.eu/uploads/documents/IDEALHY_D3-10%20HAZIDs_Liquefa… />
(Only summary publicly available, accessed October 2025)
JRC assessment
- Sources categories
- ORDIN
