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West Pharmaceutical Services Explosion
The West Pharmaceutical Plant explosion was an industrial disaster that occurred on January 29, 2003 at the West Pharmaceutical Plant in Kinston, North Carolina, United States. Six people were killed and thirty-six people were injured when a large explosion ripped through the facility. Two firefighters were injured in the subsequent blaze. The disaster occurred twelve years and from the 1991 Hamlet chicken processing plant fire, North Carolina's second-worst industrial disaster. Background The West Pharmaceutical Plant was owned by West Pharmaceutical Services,West Pharmaceutical Services Provides Update on Plant Explosion - findarticles.com - Obtained April 20, 2007. and opened in the early 1980s. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Disaster
A disaster is a serious problem occurring over a short or long period of time that causes widespread human, material, economic or environmental loss which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources. Disasters are routinely divided into either " natural disasters" caused by natural hazards or "human-instigated disasters" caused from anthropogenic hazards. However, in modern times, the divide between natural, human-made and human-accelerated disasters is difficult to draw. Examples of natural hazards include avalanches, flooding, cold waves and heat waves, droughts, earthquakes, cyclones, landslides, lightning, tsunamis, volcanic activity, wildfires, and winter precipitation. Examples of anthropogenic hazards include criminality, civil disorder, terrorism, war, industrial hazards, engineering hazards, power outages, fire, hazards caused by transportation, and environmental hazards. Developing countries suffer the greatest costs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polyisoprene
Polyisoprene is strictly speaking a collective name for Polymer, polymers that are produced by polymerization of isoprene. In practice polyisoprene is commonly used to refer to synthetic ''cis''-1,4-polyisoprene, made by the industrial polymerisation of isoprene. Natural forms of polyisoprene are also used in substantial quantities, the most important being 'natural rubber' (mostly ''cis''-1,4-polyisoprene), which is derived from the sap of trees. Both synthetic polyisoprene and natural rubber are highly elastic and consequently used to make tires and a variety of other applications. The ''trans'' isomer, which is much harder than the ''cis'' isomer, has also seen significant use in the past. It too has been synthesised and extracted from plant sap, the latter resin being known as gutta-percha. These were widely used as an electrical insulator and as components of golf balls. Annual worldwide production of synthetic polyisoprene was 13 million tons in 2007 and 16 million tons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fire Safety
Fire safety is the set of practices intended to reduce the destruction caused by fire. Fire safety measures include those that are intended to prevent the ignition of an uncontrolled fire and those that are used to limit the development and effects of a fire after it starts. Fire safety measures include those that are planned during the construction of a building or implemented in structures that are already standing, and those that are taught to occupants of the building. Threats to fire safety are commonly referred to as fire hazards. A fire hazard may include a situation that increases the likelihood of a fire or may impede escape in the event a fire occurs. Fire safety is often a component of building safety. Those who inspect buildings for violations of the Fire Code and go into schools to educate children on fire safety topics are fire department members known as ''Fire Prevention Officers''. The Chief Fire Prevention Officer or Chief of Fire Prevention will normally tra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Powder (substance)
A powder is a dry, bulk solid composed of many very fine particles that may flow freely when shaken or tilted. Powders are a special sub-class of granular materials, although the terms ''powder'' and ''granular'' are sometimes used to distinguish separate classes of material. In particular, ''powders'' refer to those granular materials that have the finer grain sizes, and that therefore have a greater tendency to form clumps when flowing. ''Granulars'' refers to the coarser granular materials that do not tend to form clumps except when wet. Types Many manufactured goods come in powder form, such as flour, sugar, ground coffee, powdered milk, copy machine toner, gunpowder, cosmetic powders, and some pharmaceuticals. In nature, dust, fine sand and snow, volcanic ash, and the top layer of the lunar regolith are also examples. Because of their importance to industry, medicine and earth science, powders have been studied in great detail by chemical engineers, mechanical engi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Combustible
A combustible material is something that can burn (i.e., ''combust'') in air. A combustible material is flammable if it ignites easily at ambient temperatures. In other words, a combustible material ignites with some effort and a flammable material catches fire immediately on exposure to flame. The degree of flammability or combustibility in air depends largely upon the volatility of the material - this is related to its composition-specific vapour pressure, which is temperature dependent. The quantity of vapour produced can be enhanced by increasing the surface area of the material forming a mist or dust. Take wood as an example. Finely divided wood dust can undergo explosive combustion and produce a blast wave. A piece of paper (made from wood) catches on fire quite easily. A heavy oak desk is much harder to ignite, even though the wood fibre is the same in all three materials. Common sense (and indeed scientific consensus until the mid-1700s) would seem to suggest that ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Slurry
A slurry is a mixture of denser solids suspended in liquid, usually water. The most common use of slurry is as a means of transporting solids or separating minerals, the liquid being a carrier that is pumped on a device such as a centrifugal pump. The size of solid particles may vary from 1 micrometre up to hundreds of millimetres. The particles may settle below a certain transport velocity and the mixture can behave like a Newtonian or non-Newtonian fluid. Depending on the mixture, the slurry may be abrasive and/or corrosive. Examples Examples of slurries include: *Cement slurry, a mixture of cement, water, and assorted dry and liquid additives used in the petroleum and other industries *Soil/cement slurry, also called Controlled Low-Strength Material (CLSM), flowable fill, controlled density fill, flowable mortar, plastic soil-cement, K-Krete, and other names *A mixture of thickening agent, oxidizers, and water used to form a gel explosive *A mixture of pyroclastic material, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Water
Water (chemical formula ) is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms (in which it acts as a solvent). It is vital for all known forms of life, despite not providing food, energy or organic micronutrients. Its chemical formula, H2O, indicates that each of its molecules contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms, connected by covalent bonds. The hydrogen atoms are attached to the oxygen atom at an angle of 104.45°. "Water" is also the name of the liquid state of H2O at standard temperature and pressure. A number of natural states of water exist. It forms precipitation in the form of rain and aerosols in the form of fog. Clouds consist of suspended droplets of water and ice, its solid state. When finely divided, crystalline ice may precipitate in the form of snow. The gaseous state of water is steam or water vapor. Water co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Material Safety Data Sheets
A safety data sheet (SDS), material safety data sheet (MSDS), or product safety data sheet (PSDS) is a document that lists information relating to occupational safety and health for the use of various substances and products. SDSs are a widely used system for cataloguing information on chemicals, chemical compounds, and chemical mixtures. SDS information may include instructions for the safe use and potential hazards associated with a particular material or product, along with spill-handling procedures. The older MSDS formats could vary from source to source within a country depending on national requirements; however, the newer SDS format is internationally standardized. An SDS for a substance is not primarily intended for use by the general consumer, focusing instead on the hazards of working with the material in an occupational setting. There is also a duty to properly label substances on the basis of physico-chemical, health, or environmental risk. Labels can include hazard ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electrical Fault
In an electric power system, a fault or fault current is any abnormal electric current. For example, a short circuit is a fault in which a live wire touches a neutral or ground wire. An open-circuit fault occurs if a circuit is interrupted by a failure of a current-carrying wire (phase or neutral) or a blown fuse or circuit breaker. In three-phase systems, a fault may involve one or more phases and ground, or may occur only between phases. In a "ground fault" or "earth fault", current flows into the earth. The prospective short-circuit current of a predictable fault can be calculated for most situations. In power systems, protective devices can detect fault conditions and operate circuit breakers and other devices to limit the loss of service due to a failure. In a polyphase system, a fault may affect all phases equally, which is a "symmetric fault". If only some phases are affected, the resulting "asymmetric fault" becomes more complicated to analyse. The analysis of these types o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electrical Ballast
An electrical ballast is a device placed in series with a load to limit the amount of electric current, current in an electrical network, electrical circuit. A familiar and widely used example is the inductive ballast used in fluorescent lamps to limit the current through the tube, which would otherwise rise to a destructive level due to the negative resistance, negative differential resistance of the tube's voltage-current characteristic. Ballasts vary greatly in complexity. They may be as simple as a resistor, inductor, or capacitor (or a combination of these) wired in series with the lamp; or as complex as the electronic ballasts used in compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) and high-intensity discharge lamps (HID lamps). Current limiting An electrical ballast is a device that limits the current through an electrical load. These are most often used when a load (such as an arc discharge) has its terminal voltage decline when current through the load increases. If such a de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dust Cloud
Fugitive dust is an environmental air quality term for very small particles suspended in the air, primarily mineral dust that is sourced from the soil of Earth's pedosphere. A significant volume of fugitive dust that is visible from a distance is known as a ''dust cloud'', and a large dust cloud driven by a gust front is known as a dust storm. Fugitive dust particles are mainly minerals common to soil, including silicon oxides, aluminium oxides, calcium carbonates and iron oxides. About half of fugitive dust particles are larger than 10 microns in diameter and settle more quickly than the smaller particles. It does not include particulate matter from other common artificial sources such as vehicle exhaust, burn piles or smokestacks. The term is used to denote that the dust "escapes" into the atmosphere rather than being exhausted in a "confined flow stream" from a "ducted emitter" (an exhaust pipe or chimney). The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimated that fugitiv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ventilation (architecture)
Ventilation is the intentional introduction of outdoor air into a space. Ventilation is mainly used to control indoor air quality by diluting and displacing indoor pollutants; it can also be used to control indoor temperature, humidity, and air motion to benefit thermal comfort, satisfaction with other aspects of indoor environment, or other objectives. The intentional introduction of outdoor air is usually categorized as either mechanical ventilation, natural ventilation, or mixed-mode ventilation (hybrid ventilation). * Mechanical ventilation is the intentional fan driven flow of outdoor air into a building. Mechanical ventilation systems may include supply fans (which push outdoor air into a building), exhaust fans (which draw air out of building and thereby cause equal ventilation flow into a building), or a combination of both. Mechanical ventilation is often provided by equipment that is also used to heat and cool a space. * Natural ventilation is the intentional passive fl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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