Discussion on whether helium testing is required for high-pressure hydrogen containers
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Dear colleagues: I have recently encountered a problem at work regarding whether helium testing is necessary for the connection points and welds of equipment manufactured using high-pressure hydrogen. Different opinions exist on this matter, and I would appreciate it if you could share your views on it. For my response to this issue, I request that you refer to relevant standards and regulations wherever possible (so as to have clear guidelines to follow), or share any experience you may have in equipment manufacturing. Introduction to the basic parameters of the equipment: operating pressure of 11~14 MPa, operating temperature of 40~140°C, hydrogen purity of 97% (other gases are flammable and explosive).
It should not be necessary; helium testing is generally used in situations with very high requirements (for detecting extremely small leaks that are difficult to identify using ordinary airtightness tests). Hydrogen is not such a medium, and a tiny amount of leakage outward is not necessarily unacceptable.
Of course, it’s good to conduct helium testing, but not all manufacturing plants have the equipment for such testing