Event
- Event ID
- 290
- Quality
- Description
- A tube trailer carrying compressed hydrogen was travelling on a highway, when the drivers heard suddenly heard the sound of leaking gas. They stopped and discovered that that gas was escaping from the fusible plug of one of the cartridges, so traffic was restricted.
The KHK report does not provide information on if and how the leak was stopped, and on the reasons for the failure. Information on how the emergency was handled is also missing. - 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
- Country
- Japan
- Date
- Main component involved?
- Tprd (Burst Disc)
- How was it involved?
- Premature Activation
- Initiating cause
- Unknown
- Root causes
- Root CAUSE analysis
- The INITIATING CAUSE was the opening of the thermally-activated pressure relief device (TPRD), expected to activate in case of temperature increases.
Nothing is known on the reason. Since no pressure anomaly was reported, it is plausible to assume that the TPRD failed pre-maturely due to material defect. The KHK report attributed the ROOT CAUSE to “inspection failure”, without however explaining why the inspection failed.
Facility
- Application
- Hydrogen Transport And Distribution
- Sub-application
- CGH2 tube trailer
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- Hydrogen Transport (No additional details provided)
- All components affected
- fusible plug, TPRD
- Location type
- Open
- Operational condition
- Pre-event occurrences
- There were 22 long tubes on the trailer
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Environmental damage
- 0
- Post-event summary
- The only information availabe is that "traffic was restricted".
- Emergency action
- After the first two explosions, the unit was compeltely shut down, and this contributed to a larger explosion. Due to the rapidity of the explosion in the gas holder, probably no emergency action was possible.
Event Nature
- Release type
- gas
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- Presumed ignition source
- No ignition
References
- Reference & weblink
High Pressure Gas Accident Cases Database of the KHK (High Pressure Gas Safety Association): <br />
https://www.khk.or.jp/public_information/incident_investigation/hpg_inc… />
(accessed May 2025)
JRC assessment
- Sources categories
- KHK
