Tianjin Explosions

Abstract

In 2015 a series of explosions occurred at a container storage station at the Port of Tianjin, China, on Wednesday, 12 August 2015, that killed over one hundred people and injured hundreds of firemen and others. The first two explosions happened within 30 seconds of each other at the facility. The second explosion was larger and involved the detonation of about 800 tons of ammonium nitrate. The cause of the explosions was not known at first, but an investigation of the Chinese authorities concluded in February 2016 that an overheated container of dry nitrocellulose was the cause of the initial explosion. Colleagues of the Nanjing University of Science and Technology and BAM worked together to analyze the reasons and the process of that incident based on knowledge about the properties of the involved substances, particularly ammonium nitrate and nitrocellulose, and potential mechanism of initiation and propagation.