NEWS | ARTICLES
Julie Industries will occasionally highlight news items and articles we feel are timely and relevent to static control issues and controlling static in mission critical environments.
Fire marshal: Static electricity sparks Sioux Center blast
By Alicia Ebaugh - Sioux City Journal staff writer
SIOUX CENTER, Iowa -- Flammable gasoline vapors ignited by static electricity were the cause of a semitanker truck explosion Tuesday night in Sioux Center, state fire marshals have determined.
Investigation continued through the morning with the Iowa State Fire Marshal's Office, the Sioux Center Fire Department and the Iowa Department of Transportation. Sifting through the charred skeletal remains of the tanker truck, investigators came to their conclusion some time this afternoon.
The aluminum truck, owned by Sioux Tank Line of Orange City, Iowa, was melted in the four-hour blaze, and a railcar nearby was damaged.
The explosion happened around 4:45 p.m. as gasoline was being loaded from the rail car to the tanker truck, which was delivering the gasoline for Siouxland Energy and Livestock Cooperative, located three miles west of Sioux Center.
The truck's driver, whose name hasn't been released but who officials said is in his 50s, remains in critical but stable condition at St. Elizabeth Hope Center in Lincoln, said SELC general manager Bernie Punt.
Unloading product directly from rail cars is a common practice, Punt said, and the trucking company's drivers receive HAZMAT training on how to do that correctly. The man driving that truck just went through a refresher course on the training within the last 10 days, he said.
Swedish hospital may ban Crocs clogs due to static electricity
Rocky Mountain News, CO - April 20, 2007
A Swedish hospital wants to ban its staff from wearing Crocs plastic clogs, saying they generate static electricity that can knock out medical equipment, a spokesman said Thursday.
Blekinge hospital in southern Sweden suspects the slip-on shoes made by Niwot-based Crocs Inc. are to blame for at least three incidents in which respirators and other machines malfunctioned.
The mishaps caused no injuries.
Hospital spokesman Bjorn Lofqvist said there were similar problems with other shoes not designed for hospital use, but the popularity of the Crocs had raised the issue to a new level.
"It’s been a problem for many years, but now there are so many people that have them," he said, adding officials were discussing whether the sandals should be banned throughout the hospital or just in certain sections.
Messages left for Crocs officials after business hours were not immediately returned.
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Curing Static Electricity Damage In a Communications Center'
A good-quality, high-performance conductive floor is the only fail-safe means of safely and effectively controlling static in a mission-critical environment or communications center. By Jerry M. Giuliano and David H. Long, StaticSmart Mission-Critical Flooring — click here to go to article
*This article appears in the August/September '05 issue of Emergency Number Professional Magazine.
HBM Device Failure: The Scourge of Static-Sensitive Operations - A close examination of S20.20 reveals the key ingredients to a successful ESD control program. ESD affects primary assembly and product warranty as well as the electronics industry in general. Article also describes measuring the personnel system resistance to ground as defined in ESD STM 97.1-1999. — click here to go to article
* Article originally appeared in the Oct. '04 issue of Evaluation Engineering Magazine.
'Conductors & Insulators' - An overview of the primary differences between conductors and insulators as it relates to static and static control flooring. — click here to go to article
Fundamentals of ESD
The Electrostatic Discharge Association provides an introductory article series on the basics of electrostatic charge and discharge, types of failures, ESD events, and device sensitivity. The article covers several important concepts regarding ESD and static electricity.
Protecting operational systems and products from the effects of static damage begins by understanding the basic concepts of ESD. In developing an effective ESD control program, it is important to understand the principles of ESD control, the methods of control, testing and standards by which ESD control programs are measured. — click here to go to this informative article series about ESD control.
For a printable pdf version of this article, 
