• EbbyA
      link
      English
      1223 days ago

      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.

      • @frongt@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        English
        223 days ago

        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.

        • Dave.
          link
          fedilink
          English
          223 days ago

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

          • Log in | Sign up
            link
            fedilink
            English
            2
            edit-2
            21 days 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!