Safety is the defining aspect of the transportation and storage of any gas at high pressure. As the hydrogen sector develops, safety has come to the fore, not least because of the public’s perception of the gas as being potentially unsafe.
A landmark incident in the development of safe designs for the transportation of gases took place in Ramona, Oklahoma, in 2001, when a conventional trailer crashed where tubes detached from the bulkhead, which led to a gas leak and fire which killed both drivers.
Investigations into the crash revealed insufficient structural integrity for longitudinal loads with only a few bolts being used to attach the tube bundle to the trailer. This prompted the National Transportation Safety Board to push for a reassessment of the way gas tube trailers were designed. The industry, working with the Compressed Gas Association (CGA), developed a new Standard for design requirements for tube trailers and tube modules: C29 (formerly TB-25). This is now fully incorporated into the Department of Transport (DOT) Code of Federal Regulations CFR 49.
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