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Heat Exchanger Failure and Explosion in an Olefin Plant

During start-up of a olefin plant at the Quantum Chemicals plant outside of Chicago, a large heat exchanger shell ruptured catastrophically, causing extensive explosion and fire damage to the plant and injury to plant personnel. APTECH performed a detailed root cause analysis of the shell failure scenario, including modeling of the two-phase working fluid's thermodynamic transients, convection, and conduction heat transfer in the shell, and stress and fracture mechanics analyses of the shell/tubesheet weld where the brittle fracture originated. Autorefrigeration was determined to be the cause of the brittle fracturing. An insurance coverage dispute developed, and our root cause analysis was vigorously challenged by an opposing team of experts. This dispute was resolved in arbitration proceedings, during which our engineers testified for 40 days. The arbitration panel voted unanimously in favor of APTECH's determination of the root cause of the accident.

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.		Failure analysis, heat transfer & thermodynamics, process plant equipment failures & explosions, fuel science, combustion, industrial fires and explosions.

Michael Cronin, P.E.		Fracture mechanics, stress analysis, design evaluation, engineering mechanics

Geoffrey Egan, Ph.D.		Engineering mechanics, welding engineering, stress and fatigue analysis, risk analysis, nondestructive examination, project management.

Steven Kohan, Ph.D.		Chemical engineering, refinery processes, toxic fume generation.