Date: 27/11/2012

STRIPPER ACCIDENT AT
THE UREA FERTILIZER
FACTORY LTD,
GHORASHAL, BANGLADESH

Syeda Sultana Razia, PhD

Dept of Chemical Engineering, BUET

Case Study: Carbon Dioxide Stripper Failure

 An accident occurred with the stripper in the

renovated 1,422 tons/day Urea Fertilizer Factory
Limited (UFFL), located in Ghorashal, Bangladesh
at 00:10 am on June 20, 1991
 11 employees of UFFL died, several others
including employees of Toyo Engineering
Corporation (TEC), Japan, (the General
Contractor)were injured
 Material loss: Estimated USD 62.5 million
 References
 Report of the Enquiry Committee on Ghorashal
Fertilizer Factory Accident, Ministry of Industries,
Gov’t of Bangladesh, July, 1991
 Investigation Report for Stripper accident:
Ghorashal Fertilizer Renovation, UFFL,
Bangladesh, Toyo Engineering Corporation, Tokyo,
Japan, August, 1991
 Background
 The existing 660MT/day Ammonia and 1137 MT/ day
Urea plants were renovated to achieve 25% increase
of design production capacity and improvement of
energy efficiency
 The existing synthesis process was converted to
energy saving synthesis process called ACES
(Advanced Process for Cost and Energy Savings)
 New synthetic section consisted of five high pressure
equipment including the urea reactor, CO2 stripper,
two carbamate condensers and scrubber
 Chemistry of Urea Production
 Raw Material : ammonia and carbon dioxide
 Exothermic reaction of NH3 and CO2 to produce
ammonium carbamate:
 2 NH3 + CO2 ↔ H2N-COONH4
 Endothermic decomposition of ammonium
carbamate into urea and water:
 H2N-COONH4 ↔ (NH2)2CO + H2O
Urea
Block Diagram of Synthesis Section

Scrubber

CO2 stripper

CO2
PFD of Synthesis Section
 Stripper Description
 The stripper: shell and tube heat exchanger in
vertical position
 Tube side (feed):
 Top: reactor effluent (urea products and carbamate)
 Bottom: CO2
 Shell side: Steam
 ID of the shell: 2.3m
 Height of the shell 13.3m
 Pressure vessel design code: AD Merkblatter
(Germany)
 Material : special duplex stainless steel (Lining
of channel:25 Cr-6Ni-1.5 Mo and Tube: 25 Cr-7
Ni- 3Mo)
 Stripper Design and Operating Conditions

Shell Side Tube side

Design Pressure 26 184
(kg/cm2G)
Design Temperature 240 220
(0C)
Operating Pressure 20 175
Operating 214 190/176
Temperature
Corrosion allowance 3 Lining thk
(mm)
Hydrostatic Test 33.8 239.2
Pressure(kg/cm2G)

Non-destructive inspection: PT (liquid penetrant examination) and

RT (radiographic examination of dissimilar metal weld joints) were
 Incident Description
 The plant was operated according to the start-up
plan. CO2 gas was flowing through the stripper.
Liquid ammonia feed pump and recycle solution
pump were started. The pressure of the ACES loop
reached 160 kg/cm2G
 There were two loud explosion sounds. The high
pressure stripper leaked to atmosphere. The stripper
bottom fell out and the main body of the stripper was
lifted up 30-35 ft and fell on the ground penetrated
14ft into the ground
Position of the Stripper
Photographs
CO2 Inlet
Distributor
CO2 Inlet Distributor Movement at Accident
 Consequences
 The severed pipes released ammonia, CO2 gases
and urea and carbamate solutions
 The power in the control and adjoining areas went
off
 About 50 people in and near the control room were
affected and 7 (of total 11) died on spot
 Control Room

 21 m away from the

stripper
 Was on the second
floor
 With single exit stair
 What Caused the Accident?
 No prior warning “Overpressure or Explosion”
 No indication of malfunction from control panel
 Nor were any visual observations
 Possibility of Overpressure?

 All indicators installed in the synthesis section

showed pressure lower than the design pressure
 Nobody recognized any alarm or sound of safety
valve discharge
 Pressure Profile of the Stripper

Design Pressure
 Possibility of Explosion?
 Flammable gases are H2 and/or NH3
 Inert gas are CO2 and/or H2O
 With fully open air feed valve to compressor: air
content is 15 vol%
 Hydrogen content is at most 0.7 vol%
 Back flow of ammonia gas from reactor through
carbamate condenser
 Flammable Ranges

CO2 H2O
H2
Nonflammable NH3 Nonflammable

Flammable
Flammable

Air Air
For Hydrogen For Ammonia
 Flammable Ranges
For NH3 and H2 mixture: using Le Chatelier rule

CO2+H2O

NH3+H2

Air
 Gas Composition Ranges

CO2 charging NH3 mixing

 Temperature Profile of Stripper
Design
Temperature
The Accident was not caused by
Overpressure or Explosion
 Detailed Inspection
 No burn or rise of
temperature on plastic
gaskets of internals
 No change of metallic
color of internals
 Fractured surface of both
tubsheet and bottom head
shows a black zone at the
4th layer between the
lining and outer surface
 Crack initiated at this
zone and propagated to
inner and outer direction
Tests/Inspection of Fractured Stripper Samples

 Chemical analysis: fluorescent x-ray analysis

and vacuum emission spectro-chemical
 Met the code requirement
 H2 content of weld metal: 6ppm ( outer layer) and
up to 10ppm (inner layer)
 Mechanical properties: Tensile strength and
Charpy Impact strength
 Met the code requirements
 Nondestructive inspection: RT, UT and PT
 No defect was detected
Tests/Inspection of Fractured Stripper Samples
(continued)

 Microstructure and hardness: EDS ( Energy dispersive

spectrometry) and (X-ray diffraction)
 First layer of saw-wire buttering weld is transformed to
martensite
 Black zone consisted of magnetite: formed by high
temperature oxidation, hence, the welding crack existed
before the vessel fractured
 Fractrographic features with SEM:
 Fracture surface is in intergranular fracture mode with
innermost surface ductile : probable hydrogen embrittlement
 Test Results
 The welding of dissimilar metals i.e. tubsheet
surface and seam of lining of channel inside was
not done in accordance with Welding Procedure
Specification (WPS): welding crack existed along
the deposit metal
 Not detected by radiographic examination at the shop
 Not ruptured the stripper during hydrostatic test
 The most probable cause of rupture was hydrogen
embrittlement ( requires 6 to 10 ppm H2)
Investigation of the Enquiry Committee

 UFFL was constructed by Toyo Engineering

Corporation (TEC) of Japan on a turn key basis on
May 1970 funded by Japanese Yen credit
 Implementation of Rehabilitation scheme by TEC in
1985 improved the performance UFFL significantly
 The same year TEC proposed yet another renovation
of UFFL with newly developed ACES process with a
favorable finance from Japanese Govt - this
renovation was not required or asked by BCIC
 Findings and Responsibility
 TEC only had experience of new ACES process for
smaller plants and scale-up of 200% was required for
UFFL
 CO2-stripper and carbamate condensers were supplied
by OLMI (Italy) - not among the approved short listed
vendors
 Start-up personnel of TEC did not have previous
experience with ACES process
 As a turn-key contractor TEC had the overall
responsibility during execution
 Safety
 HAZOP of the process was not done by TEC or
BCIC
 Safety drills and procedures were not followed
 Poor design of control room and inadequate exit
facilities
 No arrangement of emergency lights
 Aftermath
 TEC made the compensation
 Modifications were done as recommended to
ensure safety
 However, UFFL became a financially lost concern
after the accident