Event
- Event ID
- 334
- Quality
- Description
- In a metal production company, a leak occurred on valve of a hydrogen line. A new valve was ordered. Almost one month later workers arrived on site to replace the valve. After one hour they heard an explosion. Two men went to investigate and saw flames coming from the hydrogen pipe that was being repaired. They ran outside to isolate the hydrogen line
One worker had burnt his arm.
The hydrogen regulator was burnt and a new one had to be fitted. - Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Hydrogen Release and Ignition
- Nature of the consequences
- Macro-region
- Europe
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Date
- Main component involved?
- Flange
- How was it involved?
- Leak & Formation Of A Flammable H2-Air Mixture
- Initiating cause
- Wrong Installation
- Root causes
- Root CAUSE analysis
- The INITIATING CAUSE was the leak of a hydrogen valve during replacement.
CONTRIBUTING CAUSE was the fact that the workers fitted the new regulator and valve, but did not test the tightness of the new installation because the pipe was too hot. This hint as well to a lack of good procedures.
Facility
- Application
- Steel And Metals Industry
- Sub-application
- generic metal processing
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
- Hydrogen line, valve, regulator.
- Location type
- Unknown
- Location description
- Industrial Area
- Operational condition
- Pre-event occurrences
- One month before the incident, a valve started leaking. The incident occurred when contractor's workers were on site to replace it.
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of injured persons
- 1
- Number of fatalities
- 0
Event Nature
- Release type
- gas
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- Presumed ignition source
- Not reported
- Deflagration
- N
- High pressure explosion
- N
- High voltage explosion
- N
References
- Reference & weblink
Event description provided by HSE, original source confidential
JRC assessment
- Sources categories
- HSE
