Vizag Steel Blaze Failure of Safety

Posted on | juni 15, 2012 | 1 Comment

Some 16 people were burnt alive due to a huge explosion at Visakhapatnam Steel Plant’s melting shop, drawing the nation’s attention to abysmal safety standards at all the steel factories in the country.

Visakhapatnam Steel Plant has been conferred Navratna status on 17 ovember 2010. The company focuses on producing value-added steel, with 214,000 tonnes produced in August 2010, out of 252,000 tonnes total of salable steel produced.

In its blast furnace-III that was erected as part of a plan to expand the plant capacity to 6.3 million tones where the explosion took place when the officials were conducting a trial run of the recently commissioned oxygen plant.

This is the second accident at the plant in a span of one month. On May 1, two people had died in a furnace blast. In another fire mishap, on May 22, a conveyor belt carrying raw material to a new blast furnace completely melted, stalling the production and causing property loss of about Rs.1 crore.

The machinery in the newly-built plant where the latest mishap occurred was erected by a German company, that didn’t provide expertise or any proper instructions to the steel plant and is blamed for such industrial mishap.

However, the Employees’ Union blamed negligence on the part of the management for frequent accidents in the plant. Trade union leaders allege that maintenance work in the plant had been neglected for more than a year and there was no supervision of safety or quality in the expansion work.

The recent tragedy was the worst ever accident in a steel plant in India. In it’s recently released green rating of the Indian steel sector, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) had drawn the attention of Vizag Steel to its poor safety record.

The latest accident at Vizag Steel is symptomatic of the overall safety and health situation in the Indian steel industry, says a CSE official.

In fact, the CSE’s Green Rating Project (GRP) survey has revealed that over 144 people died in the period 2007-2010 in 17 of the 21 steel plants which the survey studied.

Poor occupational safety management system was found as a clear area of concern in all the steel plants of the country.

The CSE-GRP study during the three-year period found that more than 50 people die every year in major steel plants of the country. It also found that the steel industry of India has one of the worst safety performances in the world.

Iron and steel plants involve several complex processes with hazardous working conditions that require skilled understanding of the safety hazards.

The existing safety monitoring and coordinating structures lack expertise or enforcement capacity to regulate safety measures in steel plants.

It was also clearly found that OHSAS 18001 certification does not have any correlation with the safety records of these plants. This is why existing institutional structures have completely failed to reduce accident rates in the sector.

As concluded in the GRP study and given the latest unfortunate incident at Vizag Steel, it is again being recommended that a specialist regulatory body needs to be put in place to supervise, enforce, train, enhance disclosure and improve the overall safety performance of the steel plants in India..

There is also a need for strengthening of the existing laws of the 1948 Factories Act under which steel industry safety is being currently regulated.

The institutional mechanism and laws of the country are severely constrained to manage, supervise safety and health performance of the steel sector.

Before any other inferno grips a steel factory in India, it is high time to have a foolhardy mechanism in place in such factories to avoid such industrial mishaps happening again.

AUTHOR: Mujtaba Syed
URL: http://mujtabas-musings.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: syedalimujtaba [at] yahoo.com

Comments

One Response to “Vizag Steel Blaze Failure of Safety”

Sunder K Mirchandani
november 24th, 2012 @ 10:17

Oxygen System Safety
The design and operation of oxygen systems are the responsibility of the users who should obtain qualified professional assistance to ensure their safe use of oxygen.
Hazards
Oxygen is a fire hazard because it promotes combustion. The serious consequences of fires in air, which contains only 21 % oxygen, are well known. Increasing the oxygen concentration to more than 21 % greatly increases the fire hazard. Many materials that may not be combustible in atmosphere will burn in an oxygen-enriched atmosphere. Combustible materials are easier to ignite and burn faster and hotter. Fires spread more rapidly, often with seemingly explosive results. Ignition sources that have no effect in air can be of critical importance in oxygen systems.
Oxygen System Fires
Three elements—oxidizer, fuel, and ignition energy—are required to create a fire. Fires in the atmosphere can be prevented by removing one of the three elements, but they are inseparable in an oxygen system. The oxygen is contained within the system, usually under substantial pressure. The valves, regulators, piping, fittings, and other components that contain the oxygen are, in fact, the fuel. The ignition energy comes from within the system, often through mechanisms that do not otherwise cause ignition. Thus, although oxygen system fire potential cannot be eliminated, they can be avoided by risk management based on a careful analysis of the hazards and risks. The system design, component selection, materials of construction, fabrication methods, as well as system operation and maintenance must be developed carefully for each specific purpose.
Kindling Chain
The kindling chain begins when a small amount of energy is released in a system and ignites a material with a low ignition temperature or a particle with a small mass and large surface area. Once a small object is ignited, the heat that it generates ignites larger materials with higher ignition temperatures to generate even more heat until the fire becomes self-sustaining. Four common ignition mechanisms are:
Mechanical Impact
When one object strikes another, heat is produced at the point of impact, as when a hammer strikes a surface. The heat produced by mechanical impact can act as an ignition source. For example, in an oxygen system, a mechanical component may break off and strike a pressurized container, producing heat upon impact. If the surface of the container is contaminated with oil, it can ignite and initiate the kindling sequence.
Particle Impact
Small particles can be carried along with a flowing oxygen stream, often at high velocity. When the particles strike a
surface in the system, the impact energy is released as heat and, because of their small mass, the particles become hot enough to ignite larger materials.
Friction
When two solid materials rub together, they generate heat which can ignite other materials.
Compression Heating
When a gas flows through an orifice from high to low pressure, it expands and its velocity can reach the speed of sound. If the gas flow is blocked, it re-compresses to its original pressure and becomes hot. The greater the pressure difference, the higher the gas temperature. This effect is familiar to anyone who has inflated a bicycle tire; as the pressure rises in the tire, the pump gets hot. In an oxygen system, the oxygen temperature can be high enough to initiate the kindling chain.
A common example of compression heating (Fig. 1) in an oxygen system occurs when a valve (especially a fast-opening ball or plug valve) is opened quickly and the gas stream compresses the oxygen downstream against an obstruction.A closed valve or regulator is an obvious obstruction, but often the obstruction is not obvious because it exists within the valve itself. For example, the obstruction may exist at a valve seat as it is being opened, at the outlet of a partially open regulator, or at another small orifice. In addition, the gas stream can be obstructed at the angle in an elbow fitting.
Quick-opening valve–>Sonic flow–>Obstruction
Oxygen supply–> Autoignition temperature
Hazards
A common example of compression heating (Fig. 1) in an oxygen system occurs when a valve (especially a fast-opening ball or plug valve) is opened quickly and the gas stream compresses the oxygen downstream against an obstruction.A closed valve or regulator is an obvious obstruction, but often the obstruction is not obvious because it exists within the valve itself. For example, the obstruction may exist at a valve seat as it is being opened, at the outlet of a partially open regulator, or at another small orifice. In addition, the gas stream can be obstructed at the angle in an elbow fitting.