At a wastewater facility in Santa Paula (Southern California), on November 18, 2014, a vacuum truck explosion sprayed hazardous material over the site and sent dozens, including three firefighters, to hospital. Sodium chlorite, an oxidizing agent, was identified in...
A plant was restarting after a shutdown. The pulley of a double-lobe blower on a mist separator vent line (Figure 1) suddenly broke while rotating, explosively expelling fragments. Fortunately, the pulley guard (Figure 2) captured the fragments. If the guard had been...
An explosion on October 13, 2002, propelled large fragments of debris offsite, some landed near crude oil storage tanks. Three people were injured, but fortunately, no fatalities occurred. Steam leaking through manual block valves heated crude Mononitrotoluene (MNT)...
Can a “fail open” valve fail closed?. Clearly the answer is YES or we would not have asked the question! On piping and instrumentation diagrams (P&IDs) or other process safety information (PSI), valves may be indicated as “fail open,” “fail closed,” or “fail in...
