Event
- Event ID
- 1161
- Quality
- Description
- A release occurred from a high-pressure hydrogen storage vessel at a hydrogen refuelling stations. Immediately after detection, hydrogen was vented out as a safety measure. There was no injury, fatality or property damage.
For the investigation, the vessel was disassembled, and found that there were significant differences in thread length between the plug and the neck, and that the O-ring and the back-up ring had ruptured. The structural analysis for the neck assembly demonstrated that the metal parts were designed with sufficient strength but the force on the back-up ring lead to plastic deformation and rupture. - Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Unignited Hydrogen Release
- Nature of the consequences
- Leak No Ignition (No additional details provided)
- Macro-region
- Asia
- Date
- Main component involved?
- Flange (Bolts)
- How was it involved?
- Leak
- Initiating cause
- Loss Of Tightness (Wrong Operation)
- Root causes
- Root CAUSE analysis
- The INITIATING CAUSE was the rupture of an O-ring.
The ROOT CAUSE was probably related to an installation of the end plug of the vessel which damaged the O-ring.
Facility
- Application
- Hydrogen Refuelling Station
- Sub-application
- CGH2 storage
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- Hydrogen Storage (No additional details provided)
- All components affected
- vessel
- Location type
- Open
- Operational condition
- Description of the facility/unit/process/substances
- DESCRIPTION OF THE UNIT
The high-pressure hydrogen storage vessel had a volume of 487 l
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Environmental damage
- 0
- Property loss (onsite)
- 0
- Property loss (offsite)
- 0
- Post-event summary
- The storage vessels hydrogen content was released.
Lesson Learnt
- Lesson Learnt
The detection and mitigation measure worked as designed.
For the rest, too less is known to draw a lesson learnt.
Event Nature
- Release type
- gas
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- Presumed ignition source
- No ignition
References
- Reference & weblink
FCHEA Hydorgen and Fuel cell update September 2022 <br />
https://www.hydrogenandfuelcellsafety.info/september-2022#Update1<br />
(accessed January 2025)Kwang Seok Kim, Introduction of the Release Incident at Hydrogen Refueling Station in South Korea, presented at the CHS 2022 CHS Americas Conference, September 20-22 Ca. <br />
(not publicly available)
JRC assessment
- Sources categories
- News
