This report is developed as a part of the project “EMSA study investigating the safety of hydrogen as fuel on ships”. The overall objective of the project is to carry out a structured set of safety assessments and reliability analyses,delivering a Guidance document addressing ships using hydrogen as fuel. The purpose is to assist the industry and the regulators towards a safe and harmonised deployment of this relevant technology that could demonstrate an important step towards decarbonisation of the sector.

The purpose of this action is to make changes to the Risk Management Program (RMP) rule in order to improve safety at facilities that use and distribute hazardous chemicals. Because major and other serious and concerning RMP accidents continue to occur, this final rule aims to better identify and further regulate risky facilities to prevent accidental releases before they can occur.

On March 11, 2024, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published the much-anticipated Safer Communities by Chemical Accident Prevention Rule (SCCAP) Final Rule, an update to EPA’s Risk Management Program (RMP) 40 CFR Part 68, under the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 (CAA). This is the first substantial change to the rule since its inception in 1996.

How cryogenic containers workCondensation/StratificationEvaporationLiquid GrowthCryogenic TanksInsulation Methods

The testing provided data to allow the ability of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modelling to predict accumulation of natural gas from transient releases and temporal and spatial variations in explosion loading. Strain and pressure data was also gained on the structural response to allow assessment of structural modelling. 

Sodium chloride and four or five other particulate materials have been used successfully as fire suppression agents for specific combustible metal fires. The certification testing and National Fire Protection Association recommendations for using these suppression agents are summarized here. The sodium chloride based agent and ordinary sand have also been used in some sodium hydride fires, and in a sodium hydride fire test series.

Large-scale deflagration and detonation experiments of hydrogen and air mixtures provide fundamental data needed to address accident scenarios and to help in the evaluation and validation of numerical models such as the AutoReaGas code (used by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd). Several different experiments of this type were performed. Measurements included flame-front time of arrival (TOA) using ionization probes, blast pressure, heat flux, high-speed video, standard video, and infrared video.