ABSTRACT
On July 23, 1984, an explosion followed by a fire occurred at a petroleum refinery in Chicago, killing 17 people and causing extensive property damage. NBS was requested by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to conduct an investigation into the failure of the pressure vessel that eye-witnesses identified as the initial source of the explosion and fire. The NBS publication pointed out previously unrecognized interactions between pressure vessel steel, the thermal cycles that occur during repair welds, and hydrogen-containing environments. Rapid dissemination of this information was important because many other vessels in the petrochemical and chemical processing industries might have had histories with a similar combination of these factors, and so might also be at risk of a similar catastrophic failure. In late 1986, the findings of the report were summarized in articles published in Corrosion Science and Materials Performance, journals which were widely read by industrial process engineers and safety officials in these industries.
