2018 Spring Meeting and 14th Global Congress on Process Safety
(198f) Importance of Properly Designing Dust Explosion Protection Systems: Case Study: 2014 Georgia Pacific Corrigan Facility Fire and Explosion
On April 26, 2014, a fire that originated at a plywood sander eventually propagated through the pneumatic dust conveying system and resulted in an explosion in the baghouse (dust collector), fatally injuring two employees, and seriously injuring others who were responding to the incident. Sparks from the sander entered the extraction pipe, which was protected by an active suppression/isolation system (spark-sprinkler-abort gate) upstream of the baghouse. When the fire in the extraction pipe was discovered, the extraction blower downstream the baghouse (negative pressure system) was turned off and allowed smoldering and burning to continue within the pipe. The blower was subsequently turned back on, at which time a flame front developed that propagated into the baghouse which was not properly isolated. This incident occurred because of the improper design of a back-blast damper as an isolation device and operational errors associated with the blower being turned off and back on prior to extinguishing the burning material. This paper will analyze the root cause of the incident as well as key lessons learned related to: system design; performing a dust hazard analysis; required air stream flow rates; proper back blast designs; impeding deflagration vents; and exclusion zones in the path of a vented deflagration in the baghouse.