Hajo, how does CO destroy a dust catcher?
Here is what happened. The furnace had gone through a mini reline. It had to be dried before being filled and blown in. We pressure test the entire furnace including the gas cleaning system with a small
amount of wind. To do this we get garden sprayers and fill them with soapy water and spray the welded joints and bolted mains. The furnace is dried by using very large Gas Heaters that blow heat into
the vacant tuyere openings. CO gas had built up during the dry out of the Fce. All it needed was a spark and enough O2 to ignite. It did. With such force that it split the dust catcher and blew the bulkhead
from the gas main that I explained in an earlier post. I've had this happen before with a different type of Gas cleaner (cooler) that used low watt electricity and water to gather particulates from the gas,
before it enters the Boiler House to be used for fuel. When we shut down we have to purge the system with steam and leave the steam in the system while putting the Furnace on (adding wind). In the
following investigation after the explosion we found a steam purge valve that was bad. It was a gate valve and turned to the closed and open position. We found that the stem to the gate valve was not
attached to the gate. When working the valve it appeared to be normal. It wasn't.
