Event
- Event ID
- 644
- Quality
- Description
- A vapour explosion, followed by a fire, occurred at a drier in a plant making titanium sponge. When titanium containing water was put into the drier, it came to contact with the edge of the protecting tube of the inside thermometer, generating sparks which ignited the titanium sponge. The red-hot titanium sponge melted the drier to leak out, and reacted with water spilled from the fractured drier, producing hydrogen gas. This led to the vapour explosion scattering titanium, which ignited the nearby products of titanium.
- Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Hydrogen Release and Ignition
- Nature of the consequences
- Macro-region
- Asia
- Country
- Japan
- Date
- Root causes
- Root CAUSE analysis
- The ROOT CAUSE was a fault of th whole design. Moreover, management of the operations should have realised the intrinsic hazard of the operatios, and intervene.
Facility
- Application
- Steel And Metals Industry
- Sub-application
- titanium production
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
- titanium sponge, dryer,
- Location type
- Unknown
- Location description
- Industrial Area
- Operational condition
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of injured persons
- 4
- Number of fatalities
- 1
Event Nature
- Release type
- gas-solid mixture
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2,
H2O,
titanium - Presumed ignition source
- Mechanical sparks
References
- Reference & weblink
Orignal source lost. RISCAD is closed.
JRC assessment
- Sources categories
- RISCAD
