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Explosion of Natural Gas in an Apartment

An apartment unit in downtown San Francisco exploded and burned, resulting in fatalities and significant property damage. Natural gas was suspected as having been involved. Working with the local gas utility's claims people, APTECH investigated the possible sources and migration paths of the gas. The evidence and our evaluations indicated that the room had filled with gas from an unignited range/oven burner that had been deliberately opened by one of the occupants. A combustible mixture of gas and air eventually developed. Subsequently, when the front door was opened by the other resident, the mixture flowed over to an ignition source and exploded.

Satish Almaula		Plant failure and root cause analysis; process and design engineering analysis; process technology development and testing; plant engineering, operations, maintenance and safety management; plant and process control system management.

Kimble Clark, Ph.D.		Natural gas and propane gas migration, failure analysis, chemical process analysis, heat transfer and thermodynamics, fuel science, industrial fires and explosions.

Richard Schreiber, P.E.		Machinery and mechanical device failure analysis, mechanical testing, combustion and heat transfer, industrial fires and explosions, gas appliances.

Geoffrey Egan, Ph.D.		Engineering mechanics, welding engineering, stress and fatigue analysis, risk analysis.