Hydrogen Safety, Training and Risk Assessment System

The rapid evolution of information related to hydrogen safety is multidimensional ranging from developing codes and standards to CFD simulations and experimental studies of hydrogen releases to a variety of risk assessment approaches. This information needs to be transformed into system design, risk decision-making and first responder tools for use by hydrogen community stakeholders. The Canadian Transportation Fuel Cell Alliance (CTFCA) has developed HySTARtm, an interactive Hydrogen Safety, Training And Risk System. The HySTARtm user interacts with a Web-based 3-D graphical user interface to input hydrogen system configurations. The system includes a Codes and Standards Expert System that identifies the applicable codes and standards in a number of national jurisdictions that apply to the facility and its components. A Siting Compliance and Planning Expert System assesses compliance with clearance distance requirements in these jurisdictions. Incorporating the results of other CTFCA projects, HySTARtm identifies stand-out hydrogen release scenarios and their corresponding release condition that serves as input to built-in consequence and risk assessment programs that output a variety of risk assessment metrics. The latter include on- and off-site individual risk, probability of loss of life and expected number of fatalities. These results are displayed on the graphical user interface used to set up the facility. These content and graphical tools are also used to educate regulatory approval and permitting officials and build a first-responder training guide.