Event
- Event ID
- 477
- Quality
- Description
The explosion affected a furnace for the annealing of wire in special reducing atmosphere. An excess of hydrogen resulted from an insufficient purge with [96% N2 and 4% CO].
- Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Hydrogen Release and Ignition
- Nature of the consequences
- Macro-region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Date
- Component involved
- reactor / oven / furnace / test chamber
- Failure mode
- internal explosion
- Initiating cause
- inadequate or no purge
- Root CAUSE analysis
The INITIATING CAUSE was the creation of a flammable atmosphere (probably air-hydrogen).
The ROOT CAUSE was probably due to a shortcoming in the purging procedure.- Root causes
- Date entry in HIAD
- 28/01/2026
Facility
- Application
- Steel and metals industry
- Sub-application
- generic metal processing
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
metals heat treatment
- Process temperature range [C]
- unknown
- Process pressure range [MPa]
- ambient pressure (around 0.1 MPa)
- Location type
- Confined
- Location
- unknown
- Operational condition
- UNKNOWN
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Currency
- US$
- Property loss (onsite)
- 3.600
In-depth data
- Release type
- gas mixture
- Probable IGNITION SOURCE
- Explosion type
References
- Sources categories
- Zalosh
- Reference & weblink
Table II - Industrial Incidents of Appendix A of Zalosh and Short
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF HYDROGEN FIRE AND EXPLOSION INCIDENTS
Quarterly Report No. 2 for Period December 1, 1977 - February 28, 1978
https://www.osti.gov/biblio/6566131
(accessed September 2020)
