Continue to Site

Eng-Tips is the largest engineering community on the Internet

Intelligent Work Forums for Engineering Professionals

Register Log in
  • Congratulations KootK on being selected by the Eng-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

An example of a potential 'disaster' which could still happen as a result of Hurricane Harvey... 10

Status
Not open for further replies.
JohnRBaker

JohnRBaker

Mechanical
Jun 1, 2006
35,555
Chemical Plant Near Houston Warns It’s About To Explode



Texas chemical plant could explode amid Harvey flooding

As chemicals heat up in a Crosby manufacturing plant, a large-scale fire or explosion looks increasingly likely.



Harvey Danger: Major Chemical Plant Near Houston Likely to Explode, Facility Owner Warns


John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
 
Similar to Fukishima - failing to keep the back-up generators out of the water.

If it doesn't detonate on its own, who wants to go in and try restarting the cooling system?
 
It's worst than just the generators as I think the CEO said the equipment is under water too. It should all be mounted up 3 stories. Then in the worse flooding you could bring in a generator on a barge and be back in business.

Now I hear there is a second chemical plant that's also going to detonate about a mile and a half from Arkema.

Keith Cress
kcress -
 
What flood protection would be required from such a plant? like protecting tanks/pipes from floating, protecting safety relevant equipment up to a 100 or 200 year flood? Is there no such requirement, is there but no enforcement, or are the assesments of what a relevant level of flooding is too low?

Apparently the tanks are more or less full - could they have throttled production to have less inventory on site?

I also very muc hsee 3DDaves question, I don't see how to restart the cooling system. I mean, maybe you could design a plant so that control systems critical systems come online automatically when grid power turns on, but this is likely very much non-trivial.
 
Is it an option to vent and burn? If the chemicals are going to explode and burn soon, a controlled burn may avoid the explosions.


Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
 
Per NPR, two explosions this morning and black smoke rising from the plant.
 
would having a "Hurricane Plan" that mandated the plant be placed into a safe condition 24 hours before tropical storm conditions are expected have prevented the explosions
 
I'm surprised they did not have an emergency fallback in place to hydrolyze the material in case of total system failure. It isn't ideal, but at least the equipment and facility wouldn't be destroyed in the process.

Andrew H.
 
After the 2013 chemical explosion that virtually destroyed the city of West, TX, which killed 15 and hurt 226 people, the now Governor of Texas, Gregg Abbott, who was then the State's Attorney General, had state laws changed so that chemical companies were NO longer required to disclose the types nor the amount of chemicals which were stored near population centers. He ruled that this sort of information was proprietary to the corporations and therefore was not allowed to be made public or for that matter, to even report this information to the State of Texas. The citizens of Texas will be paying for this for years to come and Hurricane Harvey is just going to make it more obvious how the welfare of corporations come first in Texas and that of its citizens come second, or perhaps even third.


John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
 
And I thought this was an engineering post.
Quoting from Huffington Post and ThinkProgress? Speculating about the specifics and intent of out-of-state legislation? Naming certain politicians as villains (while giving a pass to the other elected angels and the masses who voted for them all)?
For a minute I thought I was reading Mother Jones. At eng-tips, I'm hoping for a litle more Timoshenko and a little less Marx.
Okay, back to mechanics and materials.
 
Maartin,
What I wonder about is why they don't have a fully passive protection system, like liquid nitrogen backup cooling.
And the moving of product a week before a massive storm also sounds prudent.
Just put it in refr trucks and send it inland 200 mi, then have them drive back after the storm.
I hope that their insurance company really screws them over this.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
P.E. Metallurgy, Plymouth Tube
 
"like protecting tanks/pipes from floating, protecting safety relevant equipment up to a 100 or 200 year flood?"- Presumably, they had that, but then, this isn't a 100-year or 2--year flood, and therein lies the problem.

From one of the articles above: "The firm said it made extensive preparations for Harvey, but 'the plant has never experienced flooding of this magnitude before.'"
 
Apparently some of these plants made organic peroxides like, but not limited to MEKP, which are now mixing in the water , they are now warning people not to get it in their eyes, No kidding.
B.E.

You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.
 
Our oldest son and three of our granddaughters live in Texas, so YES, we are concerned for their well being and the impact of "out-of-state legislation".

And how can you say that this is NOT an engineering issue? If elected officials allow corporations to behave in a manner that can result in the loss of life of innocent people, where were the professionals who should have known better?

So you're suggesting that being concerned about the safe operation of things like chemical plants and planning for emergency scenarios is somehow an example of "Marxism", EH? I guess we know which sort of politician you're "giving a pass to"...

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
 
How do the local fire departments feel about not knowing what sort of fire they might be fighting? And local hospitals for the sort of chemical effects? In Missouri there are similar laws against photographing puppy mills and hog farms on the excuse that terrorists would use that info.
 
I think there was a chemical the company (Arkema) was supposed to have on hand to neutralize the problematic peroxides. They hadn't stock piled it.. Probably to hydrolyze the nasties as MotoLuber suggests.

If the entire plant is two or three stories in the air wouldn't floating pipes etc not be a problem? You wanna build a chemical plant in a known flood plain you should need to build it in the sky.

Keith Cress
kcress -
 
I worked in a Hercules plant in NJ many years ago that made this product. Hercules went out of business due to the actions of a corporate raider and some of the former Hercules plants are now part of Arkema. The product is cumene hydroperoxide. Factory Mutual inspected the plant annualy and was worried about it back then, but I believe that Hercules was self insured at the time. I don't remember the cumene hydroperoxide as being refrigerated at the New Jersey plant, but Texas is much warmer than New Jersey.

Cumene is the common name for isopropylbenzene, an organic compound that is based on an aromatic hydrocarbon with an aliphatic substitution. It is a constituent of crude oil and refined fuels. Hercules had a patented process to air oxidize the cumene to form cumene hydroperoxide.

Cumene hydroperoxide was not the end product, but was stored as an intermediate. Products were sold as free flowing, off white powders that consisted of 40% active dicumyl peroxide supported on Burgess KE clay or calcium carbonate. The inert filler made the cumene hydroperoxide safer to handle.

The problem with cumene hydroperoxide is that it will undergo accelerated decomposition because of the oxygen that is present with the petroleum distillate.

Dicumyl peroxide is a strong free radical source ; used as a polymerization initiator, catalyst and vulcanizing agent. The half-life temperatures are 61 C (for 10 hours), 80 C (1 for 1 hour) and 120 C (for 1 minute). DCP decomposes rapidly, causing fire and explosion hazard, on heating and under influence of light. It reacts violently with incompatible substances or ignition sources (acids, bases, reducing agents, and heavy metals). It is recommended to store in a dry and refrigerated (< 27C or 39 C max) and to keep away from reducing agents and incompatible substances.

Storage tanks were required to have a "weak roof-to-shell seam" in case of an emergency. Otherwise, the tank could turn into a rocket. Small tanks had fusible plugs.

 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Oops409
  • Locked
  • Question
Net Zero Disaster 11
2
Replies
29
Views
428
Oops409
Oops409
enginesrus
  • Locked
  • Question
Disaster in 1967, how many of us could have warned them? 9
2
Replies
32
Views
277
enginesrus
enginesrus
JohnRBaker
  • Locked
  • News
Not sure of the failure mechanism, but there was a runway incursion at Atlanta's Hartsfield Airport
2
Replies
24
Views
392
LittleInch
LittleInch
LittleInch
  • Locked
  • Question
Disaster averted
Replies
3
Views
95
LittleInch
LittleInch
JoshPlumSE
  • Locked
  • Question
Baldwin Hills Dam Disaster - 1963 3
Replies
2
Views
134
JLNJ
JLNJ

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor

Back
Top Bottom