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Minutes of Executive Committee & chapter meetings
January 2010 June 2010 November 2010 December 2010 February 2011
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REPORTS AND MINUTES |
Home Chapter News Meeting Reports Job Postings Member News Around Town Other Stuff How to Submit
January 2010 June 2010 November 2010 December 2010 February 2011
The first Chicago SFPE Chapter meeting of 2012 was a luncheon held at Greek Islands Restaurant near downtown Chicago. Attendees were treated to a variety of Greek delicacies served family style. More than 50 chapter members and guests attended the meeting.
The speaker was Tim Osborn, Territory Sales Manager for Fike Corporation. He is located in west suburban Aurora IL. Tim covered a lot of "territory" in his 45 minute presentation. His talk covered Fike capabilities, fundamentals of dust explosions, OSHA regulations, NFPA standards, and a variety of potential solutions to mitigate the impact of dust explosion hazards. These solutions include explosion venting, isolation, and suppression.
Fike has a large scale dust explosion test facility located near Kansas City MO. Tim showed video clips of some dust explosion test results. What materials can explode? Gases, vapors, and dusts. Propane, hydrogen, cornstarch, plastics, wood, sugar, grain, and combustible metals are some examples.
Tim showed images of dust explosions in North Carolina, Kentucky, Indiana, and Georgia. All of these occurred with the past 10 years. Many fatalities and injuries resulted from these events, in addition to significant property damage. As a result, OSHA has become more focused on dust explosion hazards (prompted also by a 2006 report by the US Chemical Safety Board). OSHA has begun to levy fines to employers who are not in compliance with their standards. More than 2500 OSHA inspections have been performed since 2008. The average number of violation found is more than 6 per inspection, most of which are deemed Serious violations by OSHA. In 2009, it was announced that OSHA is pursuing the creation of a general combustible dust protection standard for industry.
There are two primary sources for dust explosion requirements. In the USA, various NFPA standards are used. In Europe, the NFPA equivalent is called ATEX (but it is law, not a guideline). NFPA standards include so-called "When, Why & Where" documents like NFPA 61 (agricultural and food), NFPA 484 (combustible metals), NFPA 654 (combustible particulate solids), and NFPA 664 (woodworking). NFPA also has "How To" documents NFPA 68 (deflagration venting) and NFPA 69 (explosion prevention).
There are several ways to achieve explosion protection
solutions - venting, flameless venting, isolation, suppression, or a combination
of those. The science of dust explosion protection continues to evolve. More
options for protection are now available.
Click
here to get a PDF copy of his presentation "Fike Explosion Protection Solutions." (submitted by Tom Gray.
Posted 28Jan12)
This month’s luncheon was held on December 12 at Petterino’s, located at 150 N. Dearborn, in Chicago. The food was great and the atmosphere was festive. Jim Lemanski, our president and past Freeman award recipient, presented a summary of year’s highlights. Some of these include:
The slate of officers were voted in at the meeting for officers whose terms were up. These include:
This year’s awards were presented by Jim Lemanski. A belated 2010 SFPE Fellow award was presented to Kerry Bell, with Underwriters Laboratories (see photo,
left).
The Lew Freeman award was presented to Jessica Hubert-Dahl, with Janus Fire Systems (see photo,
right). The Lew Freeman Service Award, named after one of the Chapter founding members, is presented to a member who has rendered long and extraordinary service to the Chapter.
The Joseph Finnegan award was presented to Paul Hart, with XL Gaps (see photo on
homepage). The Joseph B. Finnegan Award, named in honor of the long- time head of the fire protection engineering curriculum at Armour Institute and Illinois Institute of Technology, is presented to a person in the Chicago metropolitan area in recognition of outstanding contributions or long devoted service to the field of fire protection engineering.
(submitted by K. Mniszewski, 12/16/11)
On November 7, 2011, our own past president, Jeff Harper, with Rolf Jensen and Associates, Inc., presented a unique and interesting fire protection design and code study that they completed. The luncheon venue was Greek Islands, on Halsted in Chicago, which provided their usual excellent food, though service was just a little slow.
The challenge was to provide for fire protection in this unusual addition to the University's main library. The existing library, about 572K sq ft, was being retrofitted with sprinklers. This new addition was to be basically an underground structure with an unprotected steel and glass dome at grade level, with about 24K sq ft of space. Books and documents are stored in metal bin boxes on racks and pallets in the space beneath down to 55 ft below grade. An automated storage and retrieval system (ASRS) provides access to all the documents, by transporting the bins to grade level. There is a minimal need for any people in the lower spaces.
Many fire protection challenges arose involving: fire department challenges with the underground spaces, suppression system for tight storage arrangements on racks/pallets and the ASRS system, detection in the spaces with lots of obstructions. These are detailed in the attachment of Jeff's presentation provided.
Some fire protection pluses included the confinement of fuel packages and the limited ignition sources.
Implemented solutions included,
* Dual Hazard Sprinkler Protection with separation between
* Fire Alarm/Detection Detection not required by CBC
* Spot type detection at ceiling (CFD request)
* Smoke Exhaust
* "Separation" of Hazards
* ASRS manual mode to allow FD
* Ladder (w/ safety harness system) on robot
* FD hose valves throughout space
* Separate Fire Department (FD) access
Much more information can be found in the pdf of the presentation,
here.
(submitted by K. Mniszewski, 11/10/11)
This month’s luncheon meeting was held at Maggiano’s in Oak Brook. It goes without saying that the food and service are always excellent at this venue.
The speaker was Dan Finnegan, manager of industry affairs, with Siemens Industry, Inc. His topic was “The History of Smoke Detection – A Story of Saving Lives”. Dan led us through the evolutionary steps that took place to get us where we at today with smoke detection, ranging from Dr. Meili’s “nose concept” 70 years ago, to the technology of today involving multimode sensors, addressable systems, artificial intelligence, etc. Much of his presentation was based on information obtained in a recent study by Dr. Milke at the University of MD, but embellished with a history of significant major fires and Chicago events and influences.
A copy of Finnegan's PowerPoint presentation, "A History of Smoke Detection," can be downloaded here as a 3.3MB pdf file. (submitted by K. Mniszewski, 9/13/11)
A joint field trip to Aux Sable in Morris, Ilinois, was held on May 26, 2011.
This included Chicago SFPE members and Illiana chapter IFPS members.
This
facility is unique in that it is one of the largest processors of natural gas
liquids in North America. The facility is connected to an Alliance pipeline
which provides natural gas rich in heavier components (ethane, propane, butane
and pentane) from as far as Western Canada. The plant basically extracts those
heavier components from the pip
eline
flow and then returns the majority of methane component back into the pipeline,
which ends about 14 miles further downstream at a major natural gas header.
Process unit operations include expanders, distillation, isomerization (for
butane), water and sulfur compound extraction, as well as storage and
transportation equipment. The plant started operations in December of 2000.
End products include bulk ethane, propane, butane, iso-butane and pentane.
Most of the ethane
is shipped by a short pipeline to a nearby plastics
plant. Other products are stored in bulk spherical tanks and shipped by rail or
pipeline as necessary. Odorization is provided per customer requirements.
Iso-butane is provided to nearby refineries for gasoline alkylation units.
2.6 billion scf of natural gas are processed each day. From this, about
40-50K bbl of ethane, 15-20K bbl of propane, 10-12K bbl of butane and 4-5K bbl
of pentane are extracted.
A group of about 30 assembled for the tour.
After a safety video and technical briefing, we all took a bus tour through the
150 acre facility and viewed the process components, storage vessels and the
control room. Then we returned for an excellent lunch.
About
11 of us reassembled for a more detailed walking tour. During that exercise, we
viewed all the fire protection equipment throughout, including the heavy-duty
water supply systems with fire/gas detection, fire pumps, monitors, sprinklers
and deluge equipment.
Thanks to Aux Sable for an excellent and
educational tour. More information on their business and processes can be found
at www.auxsable.com.
(submitted by K. Mniszewski, 5/27/11)