Fire on an Octafiner Reactor
A weld on a 1 inch diameter instrument tapping from a Octafiner reactor overhead line fractured, resulting in a small but intense fire, lasting about 50 minutes until the unit was nitrogen purged.The fire was always under control and the fire fighting effort was directed solely to cooling the surrounding metal with fire steam lances. Plant Inspection reported that the failure was due to hydrogen embrittlement of the heat affected zone of the tapping and probably resulted from improper or no stress relieving of the connection during construction.
Event Date
February 2, 1973
Record Quality Indicator
Region / Country
Event Initiating System
Classification of the Physical Effects
Nature of the Consequences
Cause Comments
Weld failure and hydrogen embrittlement
Facility Information
Application Type
Application
Specific Application Supply Chain Stage
Components Involved
octafining reactor pipe, weld
Location Type
Location description
Industrial Area
Pre-event Summary
Weld failure and embrittlement
Consequences
Number of Injured Persons
1
Currency
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned
purging by nitrogen made stopped the fire
Event Nature
Emergency Action
Unknown
Detonation
No
Deflagration
No
High Pressure Explosion
No
High Voltage Explosion
No
Source Category
References
References
Event description extracted from the UK database ICHEME in PDF
ICHEME database is no longer available for purchase, but data can be download as PDF for free.
https://www.icheme.org/knowledge/safety-centre/resources/accident-data/
(accessed October 2020)