Safety tests focused on hydrogen behaviour under extreme conditions

Our colleagues from the Faculty of Safety Engineering and the Centre of Excellence for Safety Research participated in demanding safety tests focused on hydrogen behaviour under extreme conditions. These experiments play a key role in understanding risks, validating safety measures, and ensuring that emerging technologies are not only innovative, but also safe for real-world use.

Among the participants was Sven Eckart (TU Bergakademie Freiberg), who took part in the test series and shared his experience:

Safety tests are truly something special, exciting, intense, and requiring a tremendous amount of preparation. These kinds of experiments demand not only a lot of equipment, but also plenty of space and highly coordinated planning. The goal of the test series was to investigate the behavior of hydrogen, both from leaking vehicle tanks and from externally heated pressurized gas cylinders, a highly relevant topic in the context of future energy systems.

What impressed me most was not only the large flames and explosions, it was the level of logistics required to make such tests possible: backup power supply, mobile data transmission, multiple drones, remote-controlled systems, a detailed emergency plan, and close coordination with the fire brigade, all involving around 40 people over 5 test days on a large secured test site. You can only define effective safety measures if you truly understand the hazards.

Tests like these are essential to identify risks, observe real behavior under critical conditions, and challenge assumptions. They provide the foundation for developing reliable safety concepts and making new technologies not only innovative, but also safe for real-world use.

The tests were carried out in cooperation with the Faculty of Safety Engineering (project Refresh) and TU Bergakademie Freiberg.