Event
- Event ID
- 414
- Quality
- Description
- A compressed hydrogen trailer-tractor overturned on a highway. The vehicle left the road on Sunday afternoon for unknown reasons, broke through the guardrail and tipped over about six meters from the motorway, lying on the side. The trailer was carrying nine tubes, not completely full. The sources report a value of the total load of 1200 – 1500 litres of hydrogen.
The valves, which were secured by special protective devices, were not damaged in the accident, and not loss of containment occurred.
The emergency services closed one lane and released the hydrogen to flow out in a controlled manner. The work lasted several hours. The truck was up righted and recovered with a crane in the evening. - Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- No Hydrogen Release
- Nature of the consequences
- Macro-region
- Europe
- Country
- Switzerland
- Date
- Main component involved?
- Cgh2 Tube Trailer
- How was it involved?
- No Release
- Initiating cause
- Impact, Rollover, Crash
- Root causes
- Root CAUSE analysis
- INITIATING CAUSE was a traffic accident. In absence of information on drivers and driver behaviours, the ROOT CAUSE can be attributed generically to a human error (wrong maneuvre)
Facility
- Application
- Hydrogen Transport And Distribution
- Sub-application
- CGH2 tube trailer
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- Hydrogen Transport (No additional details provided)
- All components affected
- roll over
- Location type
- Open
- Operational condition
- Description of the facility/unit/process/substances
- DESCRIPTION
It is unclear if the value provided for the hydrogen inventory refers to the volume of the gas at standards condition, or to the volume of the tubes which were containing hydrogen. In the former case, a negligible amount of 0.14 kg of hydrogen is calculated. In the latter case, approximately 21 kg. The second option is more credible, because one does not need 'several hours' to relase 140 g.
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of injured persons
- 1
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Currency
- Euro
- Property loss (onsite)
- 100000
- Post-event summary
- The driver suffered minor injuries and was taken to hospital for observation.
e total damage was initially estimated at around 100,000 euros.
Lesson Learnt
- Lesson Learnt
It did not come to an accidental release, what suggest that the trailer design was enough robust to guarantee that the tubes remained in place during roll-over. it also helped the fact that the collision with the ground did not involve the rear of the trailer, which is the most sensitive part to mechanical collision.
Event Nature
- Release type
- gas
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- Released amount
- 21
- Presumed ignition source
- No release
References
- Reference & weblink
News from the online news Volksfreunde.de<br />
https://www.feuerwehr-schweich.de/berichte/586.pdf<br />
(Accessed December 2014)News from the online news WELT<br />
https://www.welt.de/newsticker/news3/rp/article114906716/Gefahrguttrans… <br />
(Accessed December 2014)
JRC assessment
- Sources categories
- News