OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #221488893
AHLSTROM MUNKSJO NA SPECIALTY SOLUTIONS LLC
KAUKAUNA, WI—
Event description
Employee is killed in power plant boiler explosion
Investigation abstract
At 6:30 p.m. on August 16, 2022, an employee was on an elevated platform, one back towards the steam drum which was located at the rear of the boiler before traveling to the superheater. The front and left sides of the penthouse roof had exploded out. The employee was found dead on an elevated catwalk between two ash hoppers approximately 8.5 feet apart between pipes. The distance between the penthouse and the floor above was just under 14 feet with the elevated work platform approximately 9 feet above that floor. It is typical of the power utility to ensure the ash hoppers were flowing correctly once or twice a shift. level above the penthouse of a boiler in a power utility when the Babcock & Wilcox Power Boiler No. 11, built in 1966 with a 350,000 pound-per-hour capacity, 1650 pounds-per-square-inch design pressure, and 905-degree Fahrenheit steam temperature had riser tubes explode. According to the monitoring system at the time of the explosion, the readings had the steam flow at 261,050 pounds-per-hour, steam temperature at 875-degrees Fahrenheit, and steam pressure at 1,467 pounds-per-square-inch. The riser tube, located in a horizontal plane, traveled from the header, which was located on the left side wall of the boiler,
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 29 M
- Event type
- 1
- Occupation code
- 889
Codes shown verbatim from OSHA's accident-investigation database. A human-readable decoder is coming in a future release once the accident_lookup2 dictionary is loaded.