Event
- Event ID
- 484
- Quality
- Description
The explosion occurred in a furnace used for tungsten ore reduction, because hydrogen had not been vented completely.
- 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
Failure to properly venting hydrogen was a component of the ROOT CAUSE. If this happened because of inadequate procedures or human error is not explained. However, venting alone is often not enough to guarantee hydrogen-free atmosphere in complex enclosures, and careful design is required.
- Root causes
- Date entry in HIAD
- 28/01/2026
Facility
- Application
- Steel and metals industry
- Sub-application
- Tungsten production
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
furnace
- Location type
- Confined
- Location
- unknown
- Operational condition
- UNKNOWN
- Description of the facility/unit/process/substances
DESCRIPTION OF THE PROCESS
Tungsten is primarily found in ores like wolframite and scheelite. The refining to metallic tungsten is a hydrometallurgical process which first remove impurities and produce high-purity ammonium paratungstate (APT) or tungsten trioxide (WO3).
This first step is then followed by a reduction step using hydrogen in stationary furnaces at temperatures ranging from 550° to 850° C.
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Number of injured persons
- 1
- Currency
- US$
- Property loss (onsite)
- 7.000
In-depth data
- Release type
- gas
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- 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)
