"furnace broke, (molten) metal began to be thrown and the fire spread..."

 

Refractory has a life cycle. That life cycle can be shortened for a myriad of reasons including but not limited to poor maintenance, damage during charging, etc. When a refractory is compromised a leak could occur. How a workplace plans on an unexpected release of molten metal can have far reaching consequences. Here is a recent example of a furnace failure.

Employees of the (manufacturing) plant in the (location name omitted) in the south of the city managed to control a fire in one of its ovens, preventing the fire from spreading throughout the area.

The incident was due to the fact that an aluminum furnace broke, for which the metal began to be thrown and the fire spread, which is why they evacuated the plant in order to avoid injuring anyone.

This happened on Tuesday afternoon when the same workers controlled the situation with fire extinguishers and experience, so the presence of the Fire Department was not necessary.

It should be noted that no person was injured as reported inside the (name of plant).

We are thankful that no one was injured in this incident. We have received an internal plant video of the furnace failure and to say it lightly they were lucky. Why? Because molten aluminium has the same viscosity of water. It typically will flow to the lowest point which typically is the maintenance pit under a furnace or into conduit trenches, etc. Thankfully, that did not happen at this plant because those areas typically have moisture resulting in molten metal explosions. The other possibility is that the molten metal can come into contact with a combustible and result in a fire.

We have chosen not to post the video because there are items in it that we disagree with and don’t want the plant identified. But, first the video does show some workers heading to the molten metal with the proper primary clothing other workers were wearing secondary clothing. All workers need to dress in full primary clothing when going to a molten metal spill. Why? Because commonly there will be small explosions occurring and only secondary clothing is not sufficient in those circumstances.

The main issue in the video and the photo above shows is the use of propane powered fork lift trucks in the casthouse. That practice is dangerous. We have reported on numerous incidents where propane forklift trucks caught fire.

Please comment.