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Gasoline Tank Farm Explosion and Fire

Gasoline was being delivered by a tanker truck to one of many above-ground storage vessels in a tank farm. During the delivery, an explosion of a cloud of gasoline vapors occurred near the storage vessel. Besides destroying several buildings, the explosion breached the piping system. This led to an extensive release of gasoline, which caught fire and contaminated the soil. APTECH was hired by the plant's owner to determine how the explosion caused the failure of the piping system. Our metallurgical examination and fluid mechanics calculations indicated that the gasoline vapor explosion had severely distorted a swing check valve. This event blew off a threaded plug in the body of the valve. The absence of the plug allowed the free flow of gasoline. The gasoline continued to feed the fire and contaminate the soil until the pump was shut down.

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.

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

Eric Sullivan, P.E.		Metallurgy, welding, failure analysis, fire and explosion investigations, equipment, piping.

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