QUANTITATIVE RISK ANALYSIS OF GASEOUS HYDROGEN

STORAGE UNIT
Brown, A.E.P. (1), Nunes, E.N.(2), Teruya, C.M. (2), Anacleto, L.H.(2), Fedrigo, J.C.(3) and Artoni,
M.R.O. (3)
(1)
RISIKO Plc. Rua Jacatirão, 240, S. Paulo, 04647-010, Brazil
(2)
BRIDA Consultoria Ambiental, Rua Tagipurú, 127, S. Paulo, 01156-000, Brazil
(3)
AGA S.A., Rod. Dom Gabriel P. B. Couto, km 65, Jundiaí, 13212-240, Brazil

ABSTRACT
A quantitative risk analysis to a central pressurized storage tank for gaseous hydrogen has been
performed to attend requirements of licensing procedures established by the State Environment
Agency of São Paulo State, Brazil. Gaseous hydrogen is used to feed the reactor to promote
hydrogenation at the surfactant unit. HAZOP was the hazard identification technique selected. System
components failures were defined by event and fault tree analysis. Quantitative risk analysis was
complied to define the acceptability concepts on societal and individual risks required by the State
Environmental Agency to approve the installation operation license. Acceptable levels to public
society from the analysis were reached. Safety recommendations to the gaseous hydrogen central were
proposed to assure minimization of risk to the near-by community, operators, environment and
property.

INTRODUCTION

Hydrogen is a very important gas as source of energy. The wide use of hydrogen favors the
technology development and the improvements on safety aspects. Hydrogen storage can be performed
by mobile or stationary systems. Today, hydrogen is being used as vehicular source of energy in
countries as USA, Germany and Canada. The general public access in vehicular systems, to the
hydrogen turns to be a problem. Hydrogen flame is invisible. It is known by the scientific community
that hydrogen release can form a flammable/explosion cloud in air mixtures. The lower and upper
flammable limits for hydrogen in air are 4% and 75%, respectively. Hydrogen is a lower density gas
compared to air and has a buoyancy velocity in air of 1.2 to 1.9 m/s at normal conditions of pressure
and temperature. BREWER [1] refers to the explosion limits to be between 18.3% and 59% v/v but,
other authors refer to as low as 9% to the lower explosion limit. The theoretical hydrogen explosion
energy release is equivalent to 2.02 kg TNT/Nm3. The minimal ignition energy is 0.02 mJ. At ambient
pressure and temperature, hydrogen heats up while expanding, presenting an inverse phenomena than
the majority of gases. Hydrogen ignition can result in deflagration or detonation, depending on the gas
concentration, the cloud size and the local system geometry. This risk in unconfined hydrogen
installations is much lower than in confined space installations. Hydrogen is normally stored in
ASME designed pressurized vessels or steel bottles or cylinders. Hydrogen storage systems can store
hydrogen as compressed gas, cryogenic liquid or hydrocarbon reformed. These systems normally
operate at ambient temperatures with a working pressure between 150 to 400 bar.
In Brazil, any type of industrial installations requires Federal or State Environment Agency license.
To apply to the plant operating license, the industry has to prepare a quantitative risk analysis (QRA).
Normally, the industry contracts a third party consultant for the sake of job transparency and expertise.
QRA was based on State Environment Agency norm [2] to evaluate the societal and individual risks.
F-N curves were adopted to estimate the societal risk and the tolerable risk limits established by the
Agency were 1 x 10-5 /year as the maximum tolerable individual risk and less than 1 x 10-6 /year for
the acceptable risk. The individual risk calculation was based on the criterion proposed by the Dutch
TNO in the Purple Book [3]. Results confirmed the risk social risk was negligible and individual risk
was < 1 x 10-6 /year at the plant fence for the potential events of UVCE and or Fireball formed after
gaseous hydrogen release from the catastrophic rupture of the hydrogen storage tank.
HAZARD QUANTIFICATION

HAZOP was used to hazard identification in the hydrogen storage plant. To continue the risk analysis,
it was selected storage tank rupture as the worst possible event identified to QRA, according to the
event severity classification. To define the probable events that contribute to loss containment of
gaseous hydrogen, the fault tree analysis (FTA) was used. FTA was tied-in to the event tree analysis
(ETA) to determine the ignition probabilities. With this methodology, it was possible to obtain the
gaseous hydrogen release occurrence frequency. ETA shows graphically the sequence of accidents
starting from an initiating event [5, 6] and includes the responses of safety systems and operators to
the initiating events. ETA requires a knowledge of the potential initiating failures or system upsets
(that can potentially cause a non desired event), as well as the safety system operation or the
emergency procedures, which can potentially mitigate the consequences of an initiating event. ETA
depends of the initiating events complexity and safety systems. Delphi technique is sometimes used to
solve ETA’s [5]. FTA was built on possible events that can cause gaseous hydrogen loss of
containment at the storage tank. The protection barriers were associated to the results and the QRA
evaluation performed. Fig. 1 shows the tie-in trees for the gaseous hydrogen loss of containment. The
failure rates used in Fig. 1 were obtained from data banks [7, 8], TISEC and the Hydrogen Research
Institute [9]. The resulted frequency occurrence to UVCE was 1.0 x 10-7 /year and for the fireball was
1.0 x 10-6 /year.

Figure 1. Fault and event trees tie-in to loss of containment of gaseous hydrogen

RISK EVALUATION

The Societal Risk is the population risk present at the incident area and indicates the catastrophic
damage level. Normally, it is presented as F x N diagrams on which likelihood-consequence curves
are compared with criterion lines for assessing tolerability, where: F is the accumulated frequency and
N, the fatality number. Fatality probability associated to the physical effects and public present during
working hours at daylight and night at the incident occurrence was determined. Physical effects
considered in the risk evaluation are UVCE (unconfined vapor cloud explosion) and Fireball. Near-by
the hydrogen storage area, there is petrochemical plant. At this plant there are 105 workers during the
administrative period and 25 workers at night period.
TNO [3] recommends the use of protection factors for thermal flux and overpressure incident to the
workers that depends the existing local protection. The values for the probability of fatality at the
region at risk were based on the Environmental Agency norm [2] and shown in Fig. 2. The protection
factors used to estimate the societal risk are presented in Tab. 1. The societal and individual risks
evaluation worksheet was prepared by NUNES and TERUYA [4]. The societal risk results are
presented in Tab. 2.

Frequência de N ou mais fatalidades

1E-02
1E-03
1E-04 Not Tolerable
1E-05
1E-06
Mitigate
1E-07
1E-08 Tolerable
1E-09
1 10 100 1000 10000
o
N de Fatalidades

Figure 2. F x N Diagram for Societal Risk

Table 1. Protection Factors and the Criterion of Probability of Fatality [2, 3]

Physical Effects Protection

Factor
Thermal Flux -
< 35 kW/m2 (at day period) 0.93
< 35 kW/m2 (at night period) 0.99
>35 kW/m2 0
Overpressure -
0.3 – 0.1 bar 0.90 (note 2)
> 0.3 bar 0
Probability of Fatality
75% for exposed personnel and the probability of
fatality curve of 50% -
25% for exposed personnel and the probability of
fatality curve of 50% -
100% for the exposed personnel inside the gas
cloud up to the curve limit (LFL= 4%) -
Notes: (1) 100% of fatality to the events of UVCE and fireball, for both working periods and wind 360º.

(2) TNO recommends the protection factor of 0.90 but, the State Agency considers no protection
factor to explosion effects.

Table 2. Societal Risk Results

Incident Event Accumulate Fatalities

Frequency
(F) (N)
Loss of Containment of gaseous hydrogen 1.15 x 10-7 /yr 10
 1,00E-02

Frequency of N fatalities/year (F) 1,00E-03

Not tolerable
1,00E-04

1,00E-05

1,00E-06
Mitigate
1,00E-07

1,00E-08 Tolerable

1,00E-09
1 10 100 1000 10000
Fatalities (N)

Figure 3. Societal Risk Diagram

Individual risk is the incremental probability of fatality that the hazard imposes on some particular
person.
It was defined a matrix with cells of 25 x 25 meters to the individual risk calculation to a maximum
distance from the incident center of 300 meters. The individual risk was calculated to each cell
separately with Eq. (1), considering cell event frequency, ignition and fatality probabilities and wind
frequency. The iso-risk curves are designed on the plant aerial photo, with frequencies of 10-4 /yr up to
10-8 /yr. The iso-risk curve was at the frequency level of 1 x 10-6 /yr as shown in Fig. 4.

Individual Risk = ∑ [ frequency x Pclass x Pwind direction x Pignition x Pfatalities ] (1)

where P - probability.

CONCLUSION

The resulting events from the loss of containment of the gaseous hydrogen storage tank are jet fire,
flash fire, UVCE, fireball and safe dispersion. QRA showed that UVCE and fireball are the most
impacting ones to the near-by industrial plants, besides its lower likelihood occurrence. The
consequences and people vulnerability concerning thermal flux remain within the storage unit
premises and will not impact the near-by industrial plants. The F x N diagram showed that the
calculated societal risk for the event of gaseous hydrogen loss of containment, resulted in a likelihood
of 1.15 x 10-7 /yr and presented a possible fatality of ten persons at the neighboring plant, has remained
in the tolerable region. The designed iso-risk curve for the studied event presented a likelihood level
of 1 x 10-6 /yr, that is considered tolerable according to the acceptability criterion of the State
Environmental Agency.
 Figure 4. Iso-risk Curve of the Calculated Individual Risk

REFERENCES

1. Brewer, G.D. Hydrogen Aircraft Technology, 1991, CRC Press, New York.
2. CETESB Technical Norm P4.261, Guidelines to Prepare Risk Analysis Studies, 2003, S. Paulo,
Brazil (in Portuguese).
3. Purple Book, Guidelines for Quantitative Risk Assessment, TNO – report CPR-18E, 1st. Edition,
1999, Apeldoorn, The Netherlands.
4. Nunes, E.N. and Teruya, C.M., Societal and Individual Risks Evaluation Worksheet, 2003, São
Paulo, Brazil.
5. Lees, F.R., Loss Prevention in the Process Industries, 2nd ed., Butterworths, 1996, London.
6. Brown, A.E.P., Risk Analysis Course, 2000, S. Paulo, Brazil, (in Portuguese).
7. OREDA, Off-Shore Reliability Data Handbook, 2002, DNV, Norway.
8. Investigation of Potential Hazards of Operations in Conway Islands, 1978, HSE, London.
9. Nyborg, E.O., Hay, D.R. and Bénard, P., Clearance Distance and Hazardous Zone Issues for
Hydrogen Systems, Proceedings of the Fourteenth Annual US Hydrogen Meeting, 4-6 March
2003, Washington DC.