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Coke Oven Gas Explosion in an Ammonia Scrubber in a Steel Mill

In the coker area of a steel mill in Ohio, four workers were performing routine maintenance and cleaning inside an off-line ammonia scrubber vessel. Suddenly, an explosion occurred and all four workers were killed instantly. APTECH was brought in to perform a detailed review of all process variables preceding the explosion, in order to determine the root cause of the explosion. It had been determined that a coke oven gas valve was leaking, but blanking of valves and purging of the vessel had been performed so the explosive gas accumulation was a mystery. APTECH performed detailed analyses to determine the patterns and magnitudes of the gas and air flows in the vessel and the eventual stratification of explosive gas at the vessel top. APTECH also performed detailed stress analysis of several deformed valve blanks to determine the blast over-pressure resulting from the explosion.

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.		Steel plant explosions, Failure analysis, heat transfer, 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.

Steve Lefton		Aviation, aircraft component failure analysis.

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