Aerospace Seminar

A violent explosion occurred in a chemical plant while employees were attempting to troubleshoot an apparent blockage in a pipe containing tetrafluoroethylene (TFE) monomer.  The blast caused heavy damage to the facility and resulted in three worker fatalities.

The presenter was part of a team that conducted an investigation into the cause of the incident.  This presentation will discuss the facts of the event, and then go through each step of the multi-disciplinary engineering analysis that allowed investigators to determine the root cause of the failure.   Finally, a synopsis of the lessons learned from the investigation will be also presented.