Ashland Tank‐Collapse Investigation

Abstract

On January 2, 1988, a 4,000,000‐gallon‐capacity oil storage tank at the Ashland Petroleum Company Floreffe Terminal near West Elizabeth, Pennsylvania, collapsed as it was being filled to capacity for the first time since its reconstruction. The tank had been dismantled in Cleveland, Ohio, after more than 40 years of service, and reconstructed at the Floreffe site in 1986. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) conducted an independent investigation into the physical cause of the Ashland tank collapse. It was determined that the failure was caused by a brittle fracture of the tank shell, which initiated from a defect that existed prior to reconstruction of the tank. Complete rupture of the tank shell occurred because the steel did not possess adequate toughness at the operating temperature to prevent brittle‐fracture propagation. The collapse shows the importance of using steel with sufficient fracture toughness to prevent propagation of a brittle fracture in tanks, when sudden failure would mean unacceptable human, environmental, or economic losses.