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Clean Hydrogen Partnership

Over-pressurisation of a LH2 tanker

Event

Event ID
482
Quality
Description
When travelling to a customer, a liquid hydrogen tanker experienced a slight tank pressure increase due to an improper cooling down. The driver was carefully monitoring the pressure and when he observed the pressure rise about the normal level, he called the central logistics contact and reported the situation. The driver was advised to manually operate a hydrogen vent to re-stabilise the internal pressure. After having succeeded in doing so, the driver could restart without no further pressure problem during the trip (approximately 7 hr).
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 Tanker
How was it involved?
Manual Venting
Initiating cause
Over-Pressurisation (Wrong Operation)
Root causes
Root CAUSE analysis
The INITIAL CAUSE was over-pressurisation of the LH2 tank, which caused an intevention of the drivers to reduce pressure.
The ROOT CAUSE is reported as an inadequate cooling down procedure before filling.

Facility

Application
Hydrogen Transport And Distribution
Sub-application
LH2 tanker
Hydrogen supply chain stage
Hydrogen Transport (No additional details provided)
All components affected
vacuum thermal insulation
Location type
Open
Operational condition
Pre-event occurrences
The LH2 tanker was full

Emergency & Consequences

Number of injured persons
0
Number of fatalities
0
Environmental damage
0
Currency
US$
Property loss (onsite)
200
Property loss (offsite)
0
Post-event summary
1.3 kg hydrogen were released.

Event Nature

Release type
gas
Involved substances (% vol)
H2 100%
Released amount
1.3
Presumed ignition source
No ignition

References

Reference & weblink

Incident I-1996110732 of the US Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration PHMSA: <br />
https://portal.phmsa.dot.gov/analytics/saw.dll?Portalpages&PortalPath=%… />
(accessed September 2024)

JRC assessment