"tipping process did not stop as planned...liquid metal flowed"

 

The unexpected release of molten aluminium in a plant is a nightmare that every plant wants to prevent. Here is a recent incident highlight this hazard.

An incident occurred on Tuesday morning around 6:20 a.m. in a factory building in Germany. When transferring aluminum with a temperature of more than 700 degrees from the melting furnace into a special container, the tipping process did not stop as planned, the police reported. The liquid aluminum flowed onto the floor of the factory floor. The fire alarm system was triggered by the smoke that had developed. The emergency shutdown by an employee prevented worse. Since all employees on the shift could be quickly brought out of the hall, no one was injured. The alarmed fire brigades from five (5) neighbor communities ventilated the hall in a controlled manner. The cause of the defect is still unclear.

We are thankful that no one was injured. The molten metal that spilled on the floor must have ignited either grease, oil, etc. on the floor to generate the smoke the news article mentions. Or the molten metal ignited some combustible. It would have been interesting to know how much metal poured out of the furnace.

We have heard of numerous incidents where something similar to this incident has occurred. We have been provided photos of the aftermath where a tilt furnace is accidentally allowed to empty. One incident occurred where the operator pushed the button to lower the furnace. Unbeknownst to the operator that the button malfunctioned and the command for lowering the furnace did not occur. The operator went to lunch and the furnace and poured out 25 tons into the vertical dc casting pit. Thankfully, there was no explosion. We have known incidents where explosions have occurred when molten metal accidentally flowed from a tilt furnace. Workers have been injured and killed because of the molten metal explosions.

Though we do not know why the tilt furnace kept flowing, but we make the assumption that it had something to do with the controls. That the operator followed procedure and some malfunction occurred that the operator was unaware. That is why we chose the photo for this post.

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