This fact sheet is the analysis of some accidents that illustrate the risks associated with the operation of installations in degraded mode (unavailability of equipment, utility, personnel ...). These degraded operating situations can arise from material failures, but also from[...]
Repair, maintenance shutdown, adjustment of phase, often require the shutdown and restart of gas-powered installations. This procedure is frequently time consuming to implement, depending on the type of equipment considered (superheater, steam generator), and it can generate accidents. The following[...]
The accidentology during phases of work, be it maintenance, modification, installation or even dismantling of installations have been regularly mentioned and studied. This is due to the seriousness of this type of events, particularly in terms of human consequences. Focus[...]
We need to pay special attention to the circumstances under which accidents in silos storing plant products take place. Experience shows that the frequency of accidents is far higher during the working phase including the preventive or curative maintenance, change,[...]
During his shift, an employee of a special chemical products plant noticed at 1:20 pm a release of white smoke through the vents on an intermediate storage tank containing acrylic acid (AA, C3H4O2, flammable and corrosive substance, boiling point: 141°C).[...]
At 6:56 pm inside a warehouse for phytosanitary products assigned an upper-tier Seveso classification, the activation of a foam-based automatic extinction system installed in a 1,000-m² cell brought fire-fighters to the scene 44 min later. By the time responders arrived,[...]
A large fire broke out at an open used-tire storage in an industrial area, near a recycling plant that had started its operation only two months earlier. The fire expanded fast and covered the whole pile of the tires, estimated[...]
When observing yellow smoke emanating from the chimney of a drying unit located downstream of the fertiliser plant granulator, an employee notified a control room technician; the workshop extraction fan was turned off at 10:30 am in order to limit[...]
Fire broke out around 3:30 pm on the roof of a 15,000-m² warehouse covered by 1,000 m² of solar panels (totalling some 660 panels). The building, inaugurated in November 2009, had received an HQE (highest environmental quality rating) certification; it[...]
An empty 100-m³ reservoir of sulphuric acid (H2SO4) exploded at 9:15 am at a chemical site. Installed directly above its retention basin at a height of several metres, this "F2" reservoir was projected and fell nearby, toppling the scaffolding set[...]
