Event
- Event ID
- 1116
- Quality
- Description
- A LH2 trailer had delivered hydrogen to a customer and on the way was heading back to base, when the tank pressure rose from 40 psi to 128 psi. The drivers stopped at a truck parking place and called the alarm number. The local police department gave permission to release pressure from the trailer. The fire fighters were called to stand by. The pressure was released without problems.
- 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 intervention of the drivers to reduce pressure.
BY using as proxy several similar events, ROOT CAUSE could be tentatively attributed to the failure to 'stabilise' the pressure of the tanker after delivery and before leaving customer's site. This is a procedure aiming at avoiding over-pressurisation by cold gaseous hydrogen during the return travel.
Facility
- Application
- Hydrogen Transport And Distribution
- Sub-application
- LH2 tanker
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- Hydrogen Transport (No additional details provided)
- All components affected
- Vent
- Location type
- Open
- Operational condition
- Pre-event occurrences
- The driver had terminated the delivery of LH2 to a customer's site. It can be assumed that the trailer was (almost) empty.
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Environmental damage
- 0
- Currency
- US$
- Property loss (onsite)
- 0
- Property loss (offsite)
- 0
- Post-event summary
- A negligible amount of hydrogen was released.
Event Nature
- Release type
- gas
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- Presumed ignition source
- No ignition
References
- Reference & weblink
Incident I-2001100429 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
