Event
- Event ID
- 492
- Quality
- Description
- An empty tanker was returning to the home terminal after delivery to a customer. However, the drivers had failed to properly stabilize the residue pressure in the tank before departing from the customer site. This caused a pressure increase during the journey back. The drivers noticed the pressure increase and stopped in a remote area at an exit ramp service road, There they manually released the tank pressure by venting part of the residual hydrogen succeeding in stabilising the pressure. They continued on to their home terminal without further incident (approximately 6 hr driving).
- 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 was the failure in stabilising tank presssure after having performed the LH2 transfer.
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 tanker was almost empty, after delivery.
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Environmental damage
- 0
- Currency
- US$
- Property loss (onsite)
- 20
- Property loss (offsite)
- 0
- Post-event summary
- 3.3 kg hydrogen were released.
Lesson Learnt
- Corrective Measures
The drivers received remedial training regarding the procedure for trailer pressure stabilisation.
Event Nature
- Release type
- gas
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- Released amount
- 3.35
- Presumed ignition source
- No ignition
References
- Reference & weblink
Incident I-1997040263 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
- Sources categories
- PHMSA
