Event
- Event ID
- 62
- Quality
- Description
- A tanker was returning to the base after delivery of liquid hydrogen at a space centre. The driver tanker noticed a small plume at the rear of the track. He pulled off at the next exit and found that the manual vent valve was open due to road vibration. The valve was tightened and no further incident occurred during the remainder of the trip. Later it was determined that the valve did not have any problem an dthe tanker was returned to service.
- 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?
- Flange (Bolts)
- How was it involved?
- Leak & Formation Of A Flammable H2-Air Mixture
- Initiating cause
- Loss Of Tightness (Road Vibrations)
- Root causes
- Root CAUSE analysis
- INITIAL CAUSE was the opening the manual vent valve due to vibration.
The ROOT CAUSE was probably a design which did not took into account the whole range of mechanical solicitations which the pressure control system of the tanker could experiment when travelling.
Facility
- Application
- Hydrogen Transport And Distribution
- Sub-application
- LH2 tanker
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- Hydrogen Transport (No additional details provided)
- All components affected
- valve
- Location type
- Open
- Operational condition
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Environmental damage
- 0
- Currency
- US$
- Property loss (onsite)
- 450
- Property loss (offsite)
- 0
- Post-event summary
- 0.3 kg hydrogen lost reported
- Emergency action
- The unit was depressurised and the fire extinguished after 1h, due to hydrogen depletion.
Lesson Learnt
- Lesson Learnt
This incident is very similar to other, such as the HIAD_070, which attributed to road vibrations the opening of the vapour return valve.
Event Nature
- Release type
- gas
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- Released amount
- 0.3
- Presumed ignition source
- No ignition
References
- Reference & weblink
Event incident I-1991020367 of the PHMSA database (Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, 1996),<br />
https://portal.phmsa.dot.gov/analytics/saw.dll?Portalpages<br />
(accessed September 2024)
JRC assessment
- Sources categories
- PHMSA
