title: Lessons to be learned from an analysis of ammonium nitrate disasters in the last 100 years.
abstract: Process safety, as well as the safe storage and transportation of hazardous or reactive chemicals, has been a topic of increasing interest in the last few decades. The increased interest in improving the safety of operations has been driven largely by a series of recent catastrophes that have occurred in the United States and the rest of the world. A continuous review of past incidents and disasters to look for common causes and lessons is an essential component to any process safety and loss prevention program. While analyzing the causes of an accident cannot prevent that accident from occurring, learning from it can help to prevent future incidents. The objective of this article is to review a selection of major incidents involving ammonium nitrate in the last century to identify common causes and lessons that can be gleaned from these incidents in the hopes of preventing future disasters. Ammonium nitrate has been involved in dozens of major incidents in the last century, so a subset of major incidents were chosen for discussion for the sake of brevity. Twelve incidents are reviewed and ten lessons from these incidents are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center, Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering Texas A&M University System, College Station, TX 77843-3122, United States.
authors.forename: William
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Pittman
authors.affiliation: Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center, Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering Texas A&M University System, College Station, TX 77843-3122, United States.
authors.forename: Zhe
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Han
authors.affiliation: Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center, Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering Texas A&M University System, College Station, TX 77843-3122, United States.
authors.forename: Brian
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Harding
authors.affiliation: Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center, Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering Texas A&M University System, College Station, TX 77843-3122, United States.
authors.forename: Camilo
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rosas
authors.affiliation: Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center, Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering Texas A&M University System, College Station, TX 77843-3122, United States.
authors.forename: Jiaojun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center, Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering Texas A&M University System, College Station, TX 77843-3122, United States.
authors.forename: Alba
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pineda
authors.affiliation: Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center, Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering Texas A&M University System, College Station, TX 77843-3122, United States. Electronic address: mannan@tamu.edu.
authors.forename: M Sam
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Mannan
mesh_terms: D055884:Chemical Hazard Release; D002958:City Planning; D004190:Disasters / Q000517:prevention & control*; D009566:Nitrates
chemical_list: D009566:Nitrates; C006568:ammonium nitrate
keywords: Case histories; Lessons learned; Loss prevention; Process safety; Reactive chemicals