Water Jetting Incidents

All Member companies are asked to complete either the online form or the standard form from pad, after any incident and either return it electronically or by fax (01487-832232) to the Association - which will then distribute the information to other members. The term 'incident' is used to include anything where there are Health and Safety lessons to be learned and shared. As well as accidents the report should include all dangerous practices, 'near misses', and equipment failures etc.

Shared health and safety information benefits us all, improves the image and standing of our industry and strengthens the Association.

	November 2004
	The task was to decontaminate redundant pipe spools that had a build up of Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material (NORM). To ensure the internals of the pipe spools were thoroughly cleaned before going for scrap the spools were cut open using cold cutting equipment.
	Offshore
	Cold Cutting Operations using Ultra High Water Pressure 2070 bar (30,000 PSI).
	Not applicable until investigation is concluded.
	NORM contaminated pipe spools were to be split in two to aid decontamination. The spools had a wall thickness of approximately 50mm. An area had been set up for the Cold Cutting operations and the auxiliary equipment inside a decontamination unit to perform this task. The cutting head assembly includes the UHP water hose and the grit inducement hose. This is then mounted onto one half of a support arm bracket, with the other half of the bracket mounted onto the manipulator (power head assembly). The manipulator is mounted onto a flexi track which enables the manipulator to move along the spools to carry out the cutting operations. To control the cutting operations, a control panel is situated remotely from the cutting work face. The support arm bracket enables the cutting head to be positioned 6-10mm from the associated spools requiring cut. The support arm bracket has three thumb screws which secures the two halves together. During the cold cutting operations an accident occurred where the cutting nozzle and half of the support arm bracket parted from the other half which is mounted on the manipulator and injured one of the operators who was 5.5 meters away. There is an investigation on going to find out the root cause, but as yet this has not been concluded.
	This section will be completed after the investigation has concluded.
	Quarantine this type of cold cutting equipment until the investigation is concluded and corrective actions have been agreed. The equipment was supplied by Gardner-Jenver Jetting Systems but potentially other types of cold cutting equipment could be affected.
	None

	14th July 2000
	Steel Cleaning Hammelmann Aqujett II 3000bar working at 800bar Pipe fracture on the crimped end to the pump
	We cannot control swaging or pipe quality implemented new procedures hose. 1.5 LH Spir Crimped Cover
	Notified Suppliers "Staffs Hydraulics"
	Gordon Holgate
	MD
	01200 441792
	Powerclean Chatburn Clitheroe
	Fracture on UHP line on 14th July 2000. We shut down the operation until 16th October 2000 because of the nature of the event and the need we felt we had to wait for Dienema safety covers. Fracture on 1st joint coupling to the pump. Pump shut down automatically but not before causing considerable damage to the pipe and outer polypipe cover which did not contain the burst. Operations resumed only after Dienema covers fitted on 16th October 2000.