For many, the explosion that severely damaged the BP Texas City petroleum refinery on March 23, 2005, killing 15 people, and injuring over 180 others, drove home the absolute importance of proper protection for personnel working in petroleum refinery blast zones. Of course, refineries are hardly the only place deadly blasts can occur—any place with electrical equipment or the possibility of producing flammable gasses faces this potential danger. Consequently, the industry put in to place certain guidelines to aid in the design, construction, and placement of blast-resistant structures.
Blast resistant structures built to protect people must meet many architectural and life safety provisions. Non-personnel structures, however, are specifically designed to protect valuable equipment in a variety of external environmental conditions, and are engineered to withstand a given range of anticipated heat loads from the equipment itself.
The international building code defines essential facilities as those whose processes must remain in operation or return to operation with minimal interruption during or after a catastrophic event. Thus, in the event of a catastrophic blast that could destroy both equipment and data, or worse, kill or injure employees, protective shelters must remain intact and operational. Resilience, therefore, is crucial.
Fibrebond’s Blast-Resistant buildings are extremely resilient—offering security and peace of mind with many benefits.
- Equipment protection and personnel safety
- Housing of personnel near their respective equipment
- Reduction in capital expense
- A product engineered to each application’s specifications
- A 35-year old company you can trust
Frequent regulatory audits, as well as the financial interests of owners, have generated the market for these relatively inexpensive structures, which are already being employed in plant operations, emergency medical services, and/or fire departments. And while blast-resistant modular metal enclosures for critical equipment are still a relatively new innovation, these structures are the natural—and logical—next step for dock houses, Deluge Valve enclosures, E houses in petrochemical refineries, LNG plants, operating offices, RIE’s, and accommodations on production platforms.
Fibrebond is leading the way in innovative blast-resistant enclosure construction that, in a crisis, not only safeguards your equipment and assures processes remain operational, but more importantly, ensures your employees will remain safe as well.
With Fibrebond, it’s easy to see why we stand apart from the rest of the industry. To learn more about what markets we build blast-resistant structures for, visit our markets page: https://www.fibrebond.com/markets