West, TX . . . Texas City again

A fertilizer plant blew-up and the initial reports are like 'Texas City' all over again. Texas City was a freighter filled with ammonia nitrate that caught on fire. When the fire transitioned to an explosion, it was one of the loudest, most powerful, non-military explosion of all time. It wiped out the fire department and swatted down small planes flying in the area.

The reason I learned about ammonia was the summer of 1968, I worked that summer at an ice plant that used an ammonia based, refrigeration cycle. It always leaked so I read up and learned the history of industrial accidents including 'Texas City'. Another accident was at an ice plant in Oklahoma City where workers were removing ice . . . with an ax. The ammonia escaped and made a fuel-air bomb. This was also the fuel used in the X-15 program.

Yet curiously, I'm a fan of anhydrous ammonia as a fuel-cell reactant, NH{3}, it is liquid at room temperature under high pressure but not that high. But then I grew-up making my own black-powder and rocket engines that sometimes didn't go 'zoom zoom' but 'fizzzz-bang!'

Bob Wilson

 

It measured 2.1 on the Richter Scale.

A squall line, tornado conditions, are forecast and look to be about 250-300 miles to the west.

Bob Wilson

 

Regardless, it was an impressive explosion triggered by a deck hand tossing a cigarette into a hold of ammonium nitrate.

I've been thinking about ANFO and other ammonium nitrate explosions and have come up with another mechanism, hydraulic shock. Commercial ammonium nitrate is sold in bags embedded in a clay, pills. Because it is mechanically separated by the clay pill, a shock wave needed for detonation can not occur. The air between the pills and the clay effectively limits a detonation. But put it in a liquid, either diesel or water (Texas City), and a shock wave needed for detonation is trivial.

Bob Wilson

 

It was a speculation found in the report as to the possible ignition source:

Source: Texas City Disaster Report

A Google search for Grandcamp and cigarette will provide a lot of hits where this was picked up and cited. But I can remember a time when smoking was ubiquitous . . . and house fires from the quite common.

Bob Wilson