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Underground Gas Migration and Building Explosion

An explosion occurred in a one-story commercial building in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on a weekday afternoon. The force of the explosion damaged the building beyond repair and severely injured its two occupants. Aptech was hired to determine the root cause of this explosion. Our investigation revealed that this explosion was caused by a leaking 8-inch steel natural gas pipeline buried under the street adjacent to the building. Natural gas migrated laterally from this leaking pipe and was prevented from exiting the surface by the paved street and sidewalk. The floor of the building crawl space was dirt, however, which allowed the gas to migrate to the surface at that location and accumulate under the floor and in the walls of the building. Aptech also learned that just prior to the accident, the gas company had increased the pipeline pressure from 4.5 psig to 60 psig. This relatively sudden pressure increase, in conjunction with severe through-wall corrosion of a section of the line adjacent to the building, was the source of the large quantity of migrating gas that entered the building. Ignition of the gas in the building occurred when one of its occupants lit a cigarette.

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.