Event
- Event ID
- 397
- Quality
- Description
- During a leak check of a flash point material testing chamber, the chamber was inadvertently over-pressurised with GH2. The glass port in the door burst, causing damage to the chamber and to the facility.
[Ordin, NASA (1974)] - Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Unignited Hydrogen Release
- Nature of the consequences
- Macro-region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Date
- -
- Main component involved?
- Reactor / Oven / Furnace / Test Chamber
- How was it involved?
- Internal Explosion (Hp Explosion)
- Initiating cause
- Over-Pressurisation (Wrong Operation)
- Root causes
- Root CAUSE analysis
- The ROOT CAUSE was design deficiencies in the test chamber and installation. The pressure source was 150 psig (11 bara) and the chamber working pressure was 16.5 psia (0.4 bara). There was no pressure regulator on the source and no pressure relief valve on the chamber. The pressure gauge was installed between two chambers with shutoff valves to each, thus allowing erroneous pressure readings under dynamic pressure conditions. CONTRIBUTING CAUSE was a failure to follow procedures in checking leaks.
Facility
- Application
- Laboratory / R&d
- Sub-application
- material testing
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
- testing chamber
- Location type
- Confined
- Operational condition
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Environmental damage
- 0
- Property loss (offsite)
- 0
Event Nature
- Release type
- gas
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- Release duration
- immediate
- Actual pressure (MPa)
- 1
- Design pressure (MPa)
- 0.04
- Presumed ignition source
- No ignition
- Ignition delay
- n.a.
- Deflagration
- N
- High pressure explosion
- Y
- High voltage explosion
- N
References
- Reference & weblink
Mishap no 57 in <br />
P. L. Ordin, Review of hydrogen accidents and incidents in NASA operations, 1974, NASA TM X-71565<br />
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19740020344Lowesmith et al., Safety issues of the liquefaction, storage and transportation of liquid hydrogen: An analysis of incidents and HAZIDS, Int. J. Hydrogen energy (2014) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2014.08.002
Hankinson and Lowesmith, Qualitative Risk Assessment of Hydrogen Liquefaction, Storage and Transportation, FCH JU project IDEALHY, Deliverable 3.10 (2013)<br />
confidential<br />
(accessed October 2025)
JRC assessment
- Sources categories
- ORDIN
