Event
- Event ID
- 1134
- Quality
- Description
- A vehicle transporting 54 compressed hydrogen cylinders stopped at a railroad crossing and was struck from behind by a tractor trailer that did not slow down. Due to the impact, the cylinders were thrown from the vehicle. Three of them had the cylinder caps destroyed by hitting the road, broke the valves releasing hydrogen. The hydrogen was allowed to vent till emptying the cylinders without any intervention.
- 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?
- Rupture
- Initiating cause
- Impact, Rollover, Crash
- Root causes
- Root CAUSE analysis
- INITIATING CAUSE was a traffic accident.
In absence of information on driver, the ROOT CAUSE is attributed generically to a human error (wrong manoeuvre).
Facility
- Application
- Hydrogen Transport And Distribution
- Sub-application
- CGH2 cylinders truck
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- Hydrogen Transport (No additional details provided)
- All components affected
- valve
- Location type
- Open
- Operational condition
- Description of the facility/unit/process/substances
- DESCRIPTION OF THE UNIT
According to PHMSA, each cylinder contained 300 gas-cubic feet of hydrogen. Three cylinders were damaged and released 900 gas-ft3. If these values are correct, it corresponds to ca. 2.1 kg of hydrogen released. The total transported hydrogen, in 54 cylinders, was then ca. 39 kg
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Environmental damage
- 0
- Currency
- US$
- Property loss (onsite)
- 45045
- Property loss (offsite)
- 0
- Post-event summary
- The driver of the other truck that struck the rear of the Linde truck was killed upon impact.
Lesson Learnt
- Lesson Learnt
- According to the shipping company, this accident was beyond our drivers control. The cylinders were adequately secured for normal transportation, but the impact was very violent Still accoridng to the company, there was not a possibility of not having the cylinders leave the truck.In absence of accurate frequency of failure as function of the impac tforce, it is impossible to draw an indipendent and fact-based opinion on the need of a better design.
Event Nature
- Release type
- gas
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- Released amount
- 2.1
- Actual pressure (MPa)
- 16.5
- Design pressure (MPa)
- 16.5
- Presumed ignition source
- No ignition
References
- Reference & weblink
Incident E-2005040157 of the US Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration PHMSA: <br />
https://portal.phmsa.dot.gov/analytics/saw.dll?Portalpages&PortalPath=%… />
(accessed September 2024)
JRC assessment
- Sources categories
- PHMSA
