Investigations of Structural Damage Caused by the Fertilizer Plant Explosion at West, Texas. I: Air-Blast Incident Overpressure

Huang, Zhenhua; Dai, Kaoshan; Wang, Jianze; Wu, Hui

doi:10.1061/(asce)cf.1943-5509.0000799

Cited by 5 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…The results of the FLACS analysis are consistent with observed damage in and around the West Fertilizer facility; therefore, confirming that 30 tons of uncontaminated AN would be sufficient to generate the far-field blast effects that occurred on 17 April 2013. The current results using a slightly higher mass of TNT (11,430 kg) are in good agreement with those reported in Huang et al 8 using a lower mass (9072 kg) and the ideal TNT curves, as shown in Figure 14. It should be noted that the ideal TNT curves were centered on the silo 8 and are slightly offset from the facility.…”

Section: Flacs Simulationssupporting

confidence: 92%

“…The current results using a slightly higher mass of TNT (11,430 kg) are in good agreement with those reported in Huang et al 8 using a lower mass (9072 kg) and the ideal TNT curves, as shown in Figure 14. It should be noted that the ideal TNT curves were centered on the silo 8 and are slightly offset from the facility.…”

Section: Flacs Simulationssupporting

confidence: 92%

“…For aboveground explosions like that in West, Texas, the damage to neighboring structures is dominated by the blast wave (air blast) and the damage caused by ground shock is only secondary. Similar studies 8 –10 have agreed with this assessment; therefore, only the blast wave analysis was performed and compared with damage to neighboring structures. This was accomplished by computation fluid dynamic solver, FLACS-Blast (discussed below), which solves the fluid motion and does not have models for the ground blast.…”

Section: Blast Modelingsupporting

confidence: 70%

“…Another study 8 determined that the threshold side-on overpressures necessary to cause the damage to the apartment complex were in excess of 0.2 barg (3 psig) and used this threshold to determine the required equivalent TNT. They further determined using the widely accepted correlation for TNT blast curves that the required equivalent TNT necessary to cause the observed blast damage was 10 tons (9072 kg).…”

Section: Flacs Simulationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…FLACS-Blast simulations using a TNT mass of 11,430 kg compared to the ideal blast curves reported in Huang et al8 using a lower TNT mass of 9072 kg (and centered on the silo).…”

mentioning

confidence: 91%

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Investigation findings and lessons learned in the west fertilizer explosion

Davis¹,

DeBold²,

Marsegan³

2017

Journal of Fire Sciences

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On 17 April 2013, an explosion occurred at the West Fertilizer Company storage and distribution facility in West, Texas. The explosion at West Fertilizer resulted from an intense fire in the seed and storage area of the facility that led to the detonation of approximately 30 tons of ammonium nitrate stored inside a wooden receiving bin. The explosion occurred while emergency services personnel were responding to a fire at the facility. Fifteen people were killed, more than 250 were injured, and numerous buildings were damaged or destroyed. This article presents the results of our investigation into the cause and origin of the explosion event, which included (1) early video footage which showed the room where the initial fire originates and (2) applying advanced blast techniques to determine the quantity of ammonium nitrate that likely detonated during the blast. These techniques included near-field blast effects (e.g. the resulting crater left by the blast) as well as the far-field blast damage resulting in the neighboring community.

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Section: Flacs Simulationssupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Flacs Simulationssupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Blast Modelingsupporting

confidence: 70%

Section: Flacs Simulationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…FLACS-Blast simulations using a TNT mass of 11,430 kg compared to the ideal blast curves reported in Huang et al8 using a lower TNT mass of 9072 kg (and centered on the silo).…”

mentioning

confidence: 91%

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