Event
- Event ID
- 389
- Quality
- Description
- A leak occurred at the fill valve of a LH2 vessel. With the tank pressure at about 100 psi a leak was noticed. The area was cleared and the vessel was emptied by remote controls.
[Ordin, NASA (1974)] - 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?
- Valve (Generic)
- How was it involved?
- Leak & Formation Of A Flammable H2-Air Mixture
- Initiating cause
- Material Degradation (Generic)
- Root causes
- Unknown (No additional details provided)
- Root CAUSE analysis
- The leak was caused by valve stem packing failure. Nothing is known on the ROOT CAUSE.
Facility
- Application
- Non-Road Vehicles
- Sub-application
- Aerospace
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- Hydrogen Storage (No additional details provided)
- All components affected
- LH2 tank, valve
- Location type
- Unknown
- Location description
- Industrial Area
- Operational condition
- Unknown (No additional details provided)
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
- Only loss was the tank content, quantity not reported.
Event Nature
- Release type
- gas
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- Release duration
- unknown
- Actual pressure (MPa)
- 0.7
- Design pressure (MPa)
- >0.7
- Presumed ignition source
- No ignition
- Ignition delay
- N
References
- Reference & weblink
Mishap no 48 in <br />
P. L. Ordin, Review of hydrogen accidents and incidents in NASA operations, 1974, NASA TM X-71565<br />
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19740020344Lowesmith et al., Safety issues of the liquefaction, storage and transportation of liquid hydrogen: An analysis of incidents and HAZIDS, Int. J. Hydrogen energy (2014) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2014.08.002
Hankinson and Lowesmith, Qualitative Risk Assessment of Hydrogen Liquefaction, Storage and Transportation, FCH JU project IDEALHY, Deliverable 3.10 (2013)<br />
confidential<br />
(accessed October 2025)
JRC assessment
- Sources categories
- ORDIN
