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[–] 12 points 1 month ago (3 children)

No specialist or anything, but I imagine most of the kaboom potential is puncture-based. I don't expect much to make it to the heart of a train as trains generally win in collisions.

Pressure vessel fatigue is possible too, but generally rated and tested well above pressure relief valves.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Depends on how you define "win". It only takes one small hydrogen leak for a catastrophe. A train will wreck any car or truck for sure, hit or miss with another train, but even a simple derailment of tanker cars often results in a significant mess.

    There are nuclear rail transport containers that have been tested in collisions, and they've never leaked, but they're very big and heavy for not a whole lot of volume. And they're sealed, while a fuel tank needs holes to let fuel in and out.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Luckily hydrogen floats upwards pretty quickly. So paradoxically, storage tanks are safer the less protection they have around them. Or at least, above them.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago*

    Just as well trains and other vehicles don't have roofs then.

    Fun fact: Unlike natural gas, which needs enough oxygen and enough gas to explode, hydrogen is explosive at almost any concentration of hydrogen and oxygen!

    Boom! Woohoo!

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