Event
- Event ID
- 561
- Quality
- Description
- A full liquid hydrogen tanker was approaching a stop at a vehicle weight station, when the driver noticed vapours coming from the tank vent. The driver parked the vehicle, inspected the tanker and found that the manual vent valve had opened slightly about 1/4 turn. The driver tightly closed the valve and all venting stopped. The vehicle proceeded to customer destination without further incident (approximately 3 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?
- Valve (Generic)
- How was it involved?
- Leak & Formation Of A Flammable H2-Air Mixture
- Initiating cause
- Loss Of Tightness (Road Vibrations)
- Root causes
- Root CAUSE analysis
- The INITIAL CAUSE of the release was a partially open valve.
The ROOT CAUSE seems to be the lack of detailed step transport management procedure.
Facility
- Application
- Hydrogen Transport And Distribution
- Sub-application
- LH2 tanker
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- Hydrogen Transport (No additional details provided)
- All components affected
- manual vent valve
- Location type
- Open
- Operational condition
- Pre-event occurrences
- The tanker was full
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Environmental damage
- 0
- Currency
- US$
- Property loss (onsite)
- 350
- Property loss (offsite)
- 0
- Post-event summary
- A negligible amount of hydrogen was released.
Lesson Learnt
- Corrective Measures
The operative procedure was modified to require the driver to ensure that the valves are securely closed before departing, at the loading and unloading locations, and during all safety checks.
Event Nature
- Release type
- gas
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- Presumed ignition source
- No ignition
References
- Reference & weblink
Incident I-1998030280 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
