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Clean Hydrogen Partnership

Fire on a CHG2 tube trailer in filling area

Event

Event ID
96
Quality
Description
Safety slug in the vent pipe of a hydrogen trailer failed, damaging the pipe and causing a hydrogen leak. The following fire damaged several other trailers.

[Zalosh and Short, 1978]
Event Initiating system
Classification of the physical effects
Hydrogen Release and Ignition
Nature of the consequences
Fire (No additional details provided)
Macro-region
North America
Country
United States
Date
Main component involved?
Prd
How was it involved?
Premature Activation
Initiating cause
Unknown
Root causes
Unknown (No additional details provided)
Root CAUSE analysis
Despite the lack of details, INITIATING CAUSE was a damage of the safety valve, causing a leak.
The fact that the fire damaged additional trailers hint at a ROOT CAUSE related to a lack of proper risk assessment when designing the operations, which did not consider the possible escalation from too nearly parked trailers without fire barriers.

Facility

Application
Hydrogen Transport And Distribution
Sub-application
CGH2 tube trailer
Hydrogen supply chain stage
Hydrogen Transport (No additional details provided)
All components affected
vent pipe
Location type
Open
Location description
Industrial Area
Operational condition
Unknown (No additional details provided)
Description of the facility/unit/process/substances
The meaning of the term 'safety slug' is unclear. A slug flow, in liquid flow engineering, is a "is a phenomenon that occurs in pipelines carrying gas and liquid mixtures. It involves the intermittent movement of slugs—large pockets of liquid—that can lead to pressure fluctuations, flow disruptions, and potential equipment damage... Slug catchers are specialized devices designed to capture and manage liquid slugs in pipelines." Source: https://www.everyeng.com/blog/ff4ac270)
It can only be hypothesised that a safety slug is a system preventing slug to further block the gas flow in the vent piping. However, why a safety slug would be necessary on a pipe of a hydrogentrailer is unexplicable.

Emergency & Consequences

Number of injured persons
0
Number of fatalities
0
Environmental damage
0
Currency
US$
Property loss (onsite)
100000
Property loss (offsite)
0

Event Nature

Release type
gas
Involved substances (% vol)
H2 100%
Presumed ignition source
Not reported

References

Reference & weblink

Extract from Table III of Appendix A of Zalosh and Short<br />
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF HYDROGEN FIRE AND EXPLOSION INCIDENTS<br />
Quarterly Report No. 2 for Period December 1, 1977 - February 28, 1978<br />
https://www.osti.gov/biblio/6566131<br />
(accessed September 2020)

Event incident I-1973010239 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