Assessment of the damage from hydrogen pipeline explosions on people and buildings

Failure of a pipeline carrying gaseous hydrogen can have several effects, some of which can pose a significant threat of harm to people and damage to buildings in its immediate proximity. This paper presents a probabilistic risk assessment procedure for the estimation of damage to people and buildings endangered by high-pressure hydrogen pipeline explosions. Such a procedure provides an evaluation of annual probability of damage to people and buildings under an extreme event using a combination of the conditional probability of damage triggered by an explosion and the probability that the explosion occurs as a consequence of the pipeline failure. The release of hydrogen is simulated using the LimitState:SLAB model and the size of the hydrogen-air cloud in the flammability range is evaluated, then overpressure and impulse generated by the blast are evaluated through the Netherland Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) model, while explosion effects on people and buildings are estimated through Probit equations and pressure–impulse diagrams. As for people, both direct and indirect effects of overpressure events are taken into account. For buildings, a comparison of the damage to different types of buildings (i.e., buildings made of reinforced concrete and buildings of tuff stone masonry) is also made. The probabilistic procedure presented may be used for designing a new hydrogen pipeline network and will be an advantageous tool for safe management of H2 gas pipelines.