Event
- Event ID
- 199
- Quality
- Description
- A truck loaded with 400 hydrogen bottles crashed into a concrete barrier and tipped over. After tipping over, the vehicle slid about 150 meters across the road. The hydrogen was released, ignited producing an explosion and eventually involving the tractor in the fire.
Around 50 firefighters were busy extinguishing the fire for two hours. To reduce the risk of explosion, the fire brigade cooled the gas bottles with extinguishing water at the scene of the fire. The motorway was closed for around eight hours.
The driver's cab burned out completely in the accident. The damage to the vehicle to 200,000 euros, without counting the damage to the highway surface - Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Hydrogen Release and Ignition
- Nature of the consequences
- Macro-region
- Europe
- Country
- Germany
- Date
- Main component involved?
- Valve (Generic)
- How was it involved?
- Rupture & Formation Of A Flammable H2-Air Mixture
- Initiating cause
- Impact, Rollover, Crash
- Root causes
- Root CAUSE analysis
- The INITIATING CAUSE was the crash of the vehicle against a concrete barrier.
Facility
- Application
- Hydrogen Transport And Distribution
- Sub-application
- CGH2 cylinders truck
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- Hydrogen Transport (No additional details provided)
- All components affected
- cylinders
- Location type
- Open
- Operational condition
- Pre-event occurrences
- The trailer was transporting 400 bottles. The report mention 200 -l bottles. By looking at the picture, the bottles appear standard 50 litre, 200 bar bottles. Assuming they were all full, it give a total hydrogen inventory of approximately 290 kg.
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of injured persons
- 1
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Currency
- Euro
- Property loss (onsite)
- 200000
- Post-event summary
- The driver's cab burned out completely in the accident. The damage to the vehicle to 200,000 euros, without counting the damage to the highway surface
Event Nature
- Release type
- gas
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- Released amount
- 290
- Actual pressure (MPa)
- 20
- Design pressure (MPa)
- 20
- Presumed ignition source
- Not reported
References
- Reference & weblink
Online news WELT<br />
https://www.welt.de/regionales/nrw/article842473/Gastransporter-explodi… />
(accessed December 2024)A better quality picture from Online news WELT<br />
https://www.welt.de/regionales/nrw/article842473/Gastransporter-explodi…
JRC assessment
- Sources categories
- News