GOEX Explosion Today.

[Drayton Calhoun]

Retired Navy here. Remember firepower demonstrations at sea. A6 Intruder dropping a string of 20 500 pounders, a litteral wall of water. As you say, Mako, a rolling crack and thunder. Let us not forget the Iowa explosion.

[john boy]

... There will be an OSHA investigation of this explosion with a subsequent OSHA report.  Then and only then will interested public, like us, know for sure what caused the accident.

In the meantime, not based on any facts but pure conjecture, my SWAG is a combination of 2 items:
1.  The powder coming from the Pressing Process was too dry - percent of moisture that Goex controls to = Unknown.  But I've read that when powder goes to the Polishing Process of Swiss, there is an average of 6% moisture in the powder
2.  The dry powder produced excessive dust 'real small micron sized fines' that was ignited by some malfunction or defect with the electrical system in the corning house machinery.  The corning house operation @ Minden is 100% automated with no employees performing any tasks other than to load the screens and to collect the powder at the end of the process for the polishing process

Goex's Corning Process:
The next step in the process is the corning mill, where granulation takes place. A first screening is done, where distribution of the granulations depends on the size of the screens used in the shaker. The black powder is then taken up in a lift and dumped into a hopper. An aluminum shaker with screens oscillates at 123 rpm. Powder that does not pass through the screens is returned to the rolls through a bucket elevator. All of the chutes contain magnets. The corning mill has many more moving parts than any other equipment in the plant. (Underline Added) The process contains many trips to stop the process.

If there were sticks & stones in the initial mix of the components to the wheel mill process, wouldn't they be compressed or ground up by the 2 Five Ton wheels?  Then further compression would occur when the wet cake was run through the powder press:
Goex's Powder Pressing Process
The wheel cake is then taken to the press. The friable wheel cake, including 2 percent water, passes through a chute over another magnet into the box, past breakdown rolls. Next, 113 aluminum plates are placed in the box of the press, each 2 feet square, held in position by a set of slotted finger boards. Once the box is filled, the finger boards are removed. What remains is a box filled with wheel cake separated into compartments, 3/4 inch thick, by the aluminum plate partitions. The hydraulic ram then compresses the wheel cake three times. This is a dusty operation.

Note the words - "dusty operation"

[Short Knife Johnson]

(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

Now you're making the talk we understand.   

[Mako]

Johnboy,
Talk to Bill he will explain the order of processing and how big pieces of foreign matter like sticks and stones can make it through.

For instance the pressing into cakes will  just incorporate foreign materials into the cake.  Just because you apply pressure to it don't make it disintegrate.  The largest remaining pieces will just end up being the thickness of the pressed cake.

If you can get the reports (I wouldn't count on it, you will be surprised what you can't get) I can give you the dates to look for, you will find two causes that will be cited in the reports.
1. Fires caused by "equipment"
2. Foreign Objects

It will be some time before anyone can get the current reports and you may not be able to get the previous accident reports, but these are the dates of the ones that were investigated and have submitted findings:

July 15, 2006: Fire and "small explosion", no injuries
Nov. 3, 2004: Goex explosion, no injuries
Oct. 31, 2001: Goex explosion injures two employees
Jan. 25, 2000: Goex flash fire and explosion burn one employee
Nov. 5, 1998: Goex explosion kills one worker
MOVE TO MINDEN, LA
April 16, 1997 Belin Plant, kills two workers,  operation closed in Moosic, PA
June 4, 1996 Belin Plant

~Mako

[john boy]

Mako, no need to talk with Bill.  Here is the Goex processing steps ... http://books.nap.edu/books/0309062462/html/141.html
Note the words ... The ingredients are used straight from the manufacturer, with no preprocessing

And thanks for the Goex accidents time table.  For the life of me, I can't work the OSHA report data base

[Mako]

The ingredients are used straight from the manufacturer, with no preprocessing

Which is why I said talk to Bill.  The materials are mixed as they are received.  Bill can attest to the poor quality of the potassium nitrate they receive and the amount of foreign matter in it.  It becomes an issue during the corning.

Don't believe me, ask him...

And as I said, I doubt you will get the report, or even the previous ones unless you know who to ask for the info.  It is not as "public" as they make it out to be.  You didn't really think OSHA was there to protect the public did you?

~Mako

[Blackpowder Burn]

Control - Yes

Protect - No

[john boy]

Mako, if you want to update your informative timetable  ...

*  May 13, 1986, first listed OSHA inspection of the Berlin Plant 
* 1986, the packing/sifting house at the Belin Plant blew up - no injuries
*  May 15, 1991 "accident" resulted in 3 fatalities.  The OSHA inspect report describes this incident.
"At approximately 3:12 p.m. on May 15, 1991, Employee #1 was reportedly trimming a break in the linoleum covering the concrete floor in the sifter house.  Employees #2 and #3 were cleaning the sifter house operation and removing oversize and undersize bags of black powder to an awaiting truck at the loading platform 75 ft away.  Production for the day was complete and operations had been shut down.  An explosion occurred in the sifter house, projecting fragments to the already bagged/stored powder on the platform/truck.  Three to five seconds later approximately 700 to 750 lb of black powder exploded at the platform/truck storage area.  Employees #1, #2 and #3 were killed.  Employee #4, 420 feet away, was blown against a beam and suffered a back injury.  He was taken by ambulance to the hospital and admitted."
* 1991 to 1997 - there were 5 fatalities at the Belin Plant as the result of two explosions
* MOVE TO MINDEN, LA ... Decision made April 16, 1997 by Mick Fahringer after destruction of the corning house that was built in 1996 and the corning mill that was reconstructed in 1996
* November 2008, former supervisor at Berlin Plant killed @ Minden from a wheel mill explosion
Sources:  Bill Knight

And a sad day for Goex and BP shooters ... http://www.bpcr.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1419&start=0

[Mako]

Johnboy,
I didn't list the events at thee Moosic facility before the two major ones that precipitated the move to Minden.

I also didn't go into the details or talk about the equipment they chose not to move either.  As I indicated they even brought in some used equipment from South Africa.  Why they didn't move other items is still a mystery.  We hypothesized it may have been for tax reasons because the equipment had already been depreciated or because they were actually sort of sneaking out of PA and avoiding conflicts with the state and the union.


Why did you provide that link to the report of Mick Fahringer's death?  He died four years ago.

Steel tools, or power tools on concrete in the sifter house are a no, no.  Read the conclusion to the report...

~Mako

[john boy]

Why did you provide that link to the report of Mick Fahringer's death?  He died four years ago.

Most BP folks didn't/don't of Mick Fahringer.  He learned how to make powder from his father @ Berlin and was a great loss to Goex IMO.    They also don't know about the other person who knows how to make powder, Donald MacDonald, who was administratively discharged after Hodgdon bought Goex