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Clean Hydrogen Partnership

Fire from a CGH2 tube trailer just loaded

Event

Event ID
219
Quality
Description
A compressed hydrogen tube trailer was fully loaded and parked in the sun. The heat caused a pressure build-up, so that a burst disc failed prematurely venting hydrogen, which ignited.
13,360 cu ft (approximately 32 kg) of hydrogen were released.

[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?
Tprd
How was it involved?
Premature Activation
Initiating cause
Over-Heating
Root causes
Root CAUSE analysis
The INITIATING CAUSE was the premature failure of the burst dis.

A CONTRIBUTING CAUSE was the increase of hydrogen pressure in the tubes of the trailer caused by heat flow from direct sun exposure
The fact that the a common environmental condition such as sun exposure was enough to cause a disc to one, suggests CONTIBUTING or ROOT CAUSE possibly related to (i) not fully respecting operative instructions , or (ii) lack of attention to the over-heating aspects in the operative instructions (shortcoming in accidental scenarios setting and risk assessment).

Facility

Application
Hydrogen Transport And Distribution
Sub-application
CGH2 tube trailer
Hydrogen supply chain stage
Hydrogen Transport (No additional details provided)
All components affected
burst disc
Location type
Open
Location description
Industrial Area
Operational condition

Emergency & Consequences

Number of injured persons
0
Number of fatalities
0
Currency
US$
Property loss (onsite)
0
Property loss (offsite)
0
Emergency action
The emergency measures were taken effectively. The fire was completely extinguished approximately 1 hour after its start.

Lesson Learnt

Lesson Learnt
The safety procedure (automatic pressure-relief due to over-pressurisation) worked as designed, preventing the pressure inside the tubes to increase beyond the maximal allowed values.
Although the source does not provide any detail, the fact that only 32 kg of hydrogen were released suggests that only one of the tube vented and emptied, while the others did not experienced a pressure excess. (30-35 kg is the usual capacity of a steel tube used typically for the transport of hydrogen in the period when the event occurred).

Event Nature

Release type
gas
Involved substances (% vol)
H2 100%
Released amount
32
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-1975110755 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