Health & Safety Safety Alert Orange Strip 58/2019

Tata Steel BSL Limited, Meramandali

Incident : Dangerous Occurence
Date of Incident : 04.09.2019 Time: 09:45 Hrs
Department : BOF
Section : Operation
Injury : No
Details of Injured Person (if applicable): NA

What Happened:
During tapping in converter#1, explosion occurred and dust accumulated on the columns and structure fell on
the floor by impairing the visibility in the shop for 3-4 minutes.

Risk type: R4 (C1, F3)

Last date of incident of the Employee: No
Incident (LTI) free days: NA
Under camera surveillance: Yes

Photograph/Diagram:

During tapping process

incident was occurred.

Immediate action:

1. Checked for the Hood/Skirt water leakages in the respective system and clearance given for
lifting the converter after tapping.
2. After completion of tapping, Physical inspection of tapping ladle done.
3. Converter PIT and ALLEY found dry.
4. Ladle nozzle filling inspection done, found dry.
5. Ferro Alloy system conveyor belts inspected, found dry.
6. Material used in Tapping addition were checked by discharging (50 Kgs from each bunker) to
the pit , found moisture free but lime was in powder form( fines).
7. Steel ladle refractory lining inspection done with refractory engineers and Refractory brick
suppliers- No abnormalities found in the ladle.
8. No injury and no property damage occurred.
Possibilities for the incident:

After discussing with tapping operator and trends of tapping addition, converter tilting angles in the
HMI the sound of the blast time is coinciding the time of tapping addition discharge.

1. Moisture in Ferro Alloys

2. Fines in the Tapping additions.
3. Early addition of Ferro alloys.

Recommendations:

During startup of converter (after shutdowns), ensure the Ferro alloys discharge bunker at +10 meter
should me made empty by running the vibro feeder before taking the Ferro alloy batch.

1. Addition of lime fines to be avoided.

2. Feed rate of Ferro alloys discharge from CH1 bunker to be restricted to 750 Kgs per minute.
3. Tapping addition to be discharged only after 30% of tapping completion.

Detailed investigation will be carried out of the incident for identifying root causes and further
recommendations.