GOEX Explosion Today.

[Fox Creek Kid]

http://www.ktbs.com/news/28155035/detail.html

[Cuts Crooked]

OMG!!!!!!!!!! Its wuz ................................STATIC

[Mako]

No, it was the something much more sinister...

Is eram Lignum!

Fear the furtive and seducing grain of compounded cellulose structure.  It whispers the furtive siren song of safety, yet waits coiled like the adder for that fateful day it reveals its' true nature.

[Delmonico]

Yer all full of it, they were smokin' a doobie and it got a hot box that fell off into the powder production.

[Pettifogger]

I wonder if it burned cleaner than Swiss.

[triple w]

If this goes the rout of oil, everyone out there will claim there is a shortage and black powder prices will go higher than the smoke cloud from that explosion! .......

[Pony Racer]

Maybe since it it a "dirtier" or "dustier" powder a person enjoying aa cigarette or other smokable item did set it off.

I do know there have been explosions at grain plants due to grain dust particles/decomposing grain in half filled silos and other storage compartments when an ignition source was provided.

Triple W - where i buy powder everything but swiss and some substitutes are cheaper than goex.

PR

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

Some of the news articles are reporting that it happened in the corning mill. That's where the powder cake is ground into grains. Seems to me I read just a week or so ago right here on this forum that explosions of this type often occur when for foreign objects get into the machinery.

[Jefro]

OMG!!!!!!!!!! Its wuz ................................STATIC

Must of been using a plastic Mec bottle


Jefro Relax-Enjoy

[Mako]

Howdy

Some of the news articles are reporting that it happened in the corning mill. That's where the powder cake is ground into grains. Seems to me I read just a week or so ago right here on this forum that explosions of this type often occur when for foreign objects get into the machinery.

You would be quoting me... The last explosion at Goex that could be tied to an electrical discharge was at the Belin plant in PA in 1996.  And that was from a fire that was started by lightning.

A lot of the of explosions at the Goex plants have been due to sticks , stones or trash that made it through the process or got in the equipment or batch later on. Number one cause is fires started by equipment, or in some cases heat build up.  When you have equipment running for days on end things get hot and wear out.  If you saw the facilities you would not be impressed, it looks like a cement and rock crushing operation, the only reason they remain in business (or are allowed)  is because of government contracts.

~Mako

[Driftwood Johnson]

Gotta wonder why sticks, stones, or trash are finding their way into the powder making process. Particularly since they have government contracts. My experience with govt contract work is the Mil Specs are set pretty high and the govt likes to know when things go wrong and what they are going to do about it.

Perhaps since Goex is the only BP plant in the US and there is no competition the govt lowers the standards a bit?

[Pettifogger]

"Gotta wonder why sticks, stones, or trash are finding their way into the powder making process."  I guess you don't want to know what is in your food!

[Mako]

Based on reports I have read, the debris that gets in from the materials is almost always from the Potassium Nitrate, the quality of their source is poor.  The things that get in during the processing is just from an attitude common to large processors that operate in either open air or rough environments.  Since everything in the processing areas are "disposable" including the buildings they don't treat them as they should.  The rollling mills are refurbished units from a defunct company in South Africa and they just rebuild them after an accident.

So you think they have permanent onsite inspectors like other defense contractors?  Dream on...  They shut the mill down for inspections, the inspectors won't get near it while the lines are in operation.  The primary inspections are all post processing and really just to certify the quality before it goes to the contractors using it.  They take some of it directly for their arsenal units and they conduct their own tests.

We would get inspectors at Camden at the decoy operation coming in because they had gone to the Minden facility and found they were still processing.  They would come over and "inspect" or cool their heels until they had "safed" the line and then they would go back.  During this shutdown they would have the younger workers all over the equipment like monkeys checking for items that would show as "findings."

~Mako

[Fox Creek Kid]

I wonder if it burned cleaner than Swiss.

[Short Knife Johnson]

Thankfully nobody was killed this time.

I've been subjected to fairly close proximity to "small" BP explosions.  Once was 3/4 pound of carelessly stored Goex in a leaky flask.  It was ignited by the wind drifting hot embers from the muzzle flash of my rifle.  It's a good thing the flask was in a toolbox and the blast was somewhat contained.  Made for a shocking experience.

The other time was during a reenactment of the siege of Fort Battleford.  I was one of the skirmishers shooting at the NWMP from the bushes.  The end of the engagement was to be cued by a cannon shot and subsequent detonation of the ground charge (full pound of Graf).  In the excitement, I got a little too close, realized my mistake and withdrew to a postion about 15 feet away.  Upon the explosion I was again nearly knocked off of my feet, then showered with dirt for what seemed near a full 60 seconds.  What a rush!

But 1000 pounds...

[Mako]

Thankfully nobody was killed this time.

I've been subjected to fairly close proximity to "small" BP explosions.  Once was 3/4 pound of carelessly stored Goex in a leaky flask.  It was ignited by the wind drifting hot embers from the muzzle flash of my rifle.  It's a good thing the flask was in a toolbox and the blast was somewhat contained.  Made for a shocking experience.

The other time was during a reenactment of the siege of Fort Battleford.  I was one of the skirmishers shooting at the NWMP from the bushes.  The end of the engagement was to be cued by a cannon shot and subsequent detonation of the ground charge (full pound of Graf).  In the excitement, I got a little too close, realized my mistake and withdrew to a postion about 15 feet away.  Upon the explosion I was again nearly knocked off of my feet, then showered with dirt for what seemed near a full 60 seconds.  What a rush!

But 1000 pounds...

Try this one on for size...

I've never been around 1,000 pounds of BP going off, but I've been 437 meters from a Paveway 16 strike on a cave entrance.  The 16 uses the body of a MK83 which is a 1,000 weapon containing roughly 450lbs of Tritonal which is 80% TNT with Aluminum powder added to increase the brisance.  The detonation velocity of BP is only 1,300 fps and TNT is 22,770 fps but Tritonal has a detonation front wave 18% faster than TNT.

So if we just look at the pressure equivalents and ignore the wave velocity then BP has about 60% of the pressure per unit weight of TNT and Tritanol is 118%.  The Energy content of BP is pretty universally considered to be 3 megajoules per kilogram or 1.00E6 ft-lbsf, TNT is 4.7 megajoules per kilogram or 1.57E6 ft-lbsf and Tritonal is 5.06  megajoules per kilogram or 1.69E6 ft-lbsf.  It all depends on how you look at it, but the front wave of the high explosives like TNT and Tritonal is hugely different which is why it tears up rock, steel and concrete when BP only distorts it.

I can testify a "1,000lb" bomb is intense even from 4 football fields away.  I've been around a lot of controlled tests with baffles or in a blockhouse, but this one was without an imposed barrier other than a slight defilade.  You could feel the air being forced out of your chest.  The energy of a 450lb charge of Tritonal is the equivalent of 756lbs of BP but the shock wave is immensely more powerful.  437 meters  is sub danger close, but that is primarily driven by weapons accuracy up to 300 meters.  It was tight and a 500 or 750 pounder would have been enough but at the time the only thing they had on their racks other than the lighter JDAMS was the heavier weapon we could direct with our designators.  I wish we could have backed off further but is was in a narrow neck between bluff faces and we would have lost the line of sight past the actual opening shadow.  Looking back on it now it wouldn't have made a difference because the release was too far into the valley and the angle wasn't shallow enough to make a difference.

I know guys that were riding in an LAV and drove over or actually next to an IED made with an estimated two 152mm shells which only hold 17 pounds of RDX/Aluminum mix each and it twisted the LAV into junk.  An MRAP would have been torn up as well.  The comment I always get when I ask them about it is, "LOUD!!!"  TNT and RDX crack and roll sort of like nitrocellulose powder and we all know that BP has that meatier rolling boom, but I don't think I could convince them to compare the two sounds up close.

~Mako

[Fox Creek Kid]

Gee Mako, think you used enough Milspeak acronyms in that last post??!!    We're gonna need a U.N. interpreter!!

http://www.soundstore.com/nolan/ass/

[fourfingersofdeath]

As to the Facebook 'Like' button, no thanks, I don't like! Good to see no one hurt, apart from the dude who tripped over during the evacuation), but it is probably going to put a few people out of work while things get fixed up and the price of BP will suffer as a result and also be harder to get.

Bad news all round.

Goex used to be all we could get her in Australia, now it is all Wano. We normally only have one type available at any one time.

[The Swede]

Try this one on for size...

I've never been around 1,000 pounds of BP going off, but I've been 437 meters from a Paveway 16 strike on a cave entrance.  The 16 uses the body of a MK83 which is a 1,000 weapon containing roughly 450lbs of Tritonal which is 80% TNT with Aluminum powder added to increase the brisance.  The detonation velocity of BP is only 1,300 fps and TNT is 22,770 fps but Tritonal has a detonation front wave 18% faster than TNT.

So if we just look at the pressure equivalents and ignore the wave velocity then BP has about 60% of the pressure per unit weight of TNT and Tritanol is 118%.  The Energy content of BP is pretty universally considered to be 3 megajoules per kilogram or 1.00E6 ft-lbsf, TNT is 4.7 megajoules per kilogram or 1.57E6 ft-lbsf and Tritonal is 5.06  megajoules per kilogram or 1.69E6 ft-lbsf.  It all depends on how you look at it, but the front wave of the high explosives like TNT and Tritonal is hugely different which is why it tears up rock, steel and concrete when BP only distorts it.

I can testify a "1,000lb" bomb it is intense even from 4 football fields away.  I've been around a lot of controlled tests with baffles or in a blockhouse, but this one was without an imposed barrier other than a slight defilade.  You could feel the air being forced out of your chest.  The energy of a 450lb charge of Tritonal is the equivalent of 756lbs of BP but the shock wave is immensely more powerful.  437 meters  is sub danger close, but that is primarily driven by weapons accuracy up to 300 meters.  It was tight and a 500 or 750 would have been enough but the only thing they had other than the lighter JDAMS was the heavier weapon we could direct with our designators.  I wish we could have backed off further but is was in a narrow neck between bluff faces and we would have lost the line of sight past the actual opening shadow.  Looking back on it now it wouldn't have made a difference because the release was too far into the valley and the angle wasn't shallow enough to make a difference.

I know guys that were in an LAV and were hit with a double 152mm IED which is only 17 pounds of RDX/Al each and it twisted the LAV into junk.  An MRAP would have been torn up as well.  The comment I always get when I ask them about it is, "LOUD!!!"  TNT and RDX crack and roll sort of like nitrocellulose powder and we all know that BP has that meatier rolling boom, but I don't think I could convince them to compare the two sounds up close.

~Mako

Mako, I didn't know you had a military background? What arm of the service? I served in the Canadian Armed Forces. I was based in Petawawa Ontario in the SSF Brigade (Special Service Force).  Never had any experience with 1,000 lb. bombs, but been close to 105mm artillery shells going off (within 600 metres). Not something you want to do anytime soon...

[Mako]

Gee Mako, think you used enough Milspeak acronyms in that last post??!!    We're gonna need a U.N. interpreter!!

http://www.soundstore.com/nolan/ass/

(Just for the Kid)

Me call big metal bird that roars to drop big medicine on bad injuns.  Mako's band of warriors use evil eye to guide the spirit of the big medicine to the cave of the evil injuns. 

Big medicine go BOOOM!!!! make ground shake like herd of many Buffalo running swiftly. 

Big medicine take breath from Mako and other warriors.  Big boom like the crash of angry thunder or the sound of many cannons. Dirt and smoke fill sky and make the mountain fall.

We thank the metal bird and do (Snoopy) dance of victory at the pile of rock where cave used to be.

~Mako
Semper Fi