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From: "Osterby, Meg" <OsterbyM**At_Symbol_Here**WESTERNTC.EDU>
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Exploding pumps trigger Sciex mass spectrometer alert
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2017 22:10:04 +0000
Reply-To: ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU>
Message-ID: BN3PR0301MB1202A8E082D9CB1AEAAEB51AD2350**At_Symbol_Here**BN3PR0301MB1202.namprd03.prod.outlook.com
In-Reply-To <00ad01d2a828$55998b90$00cca2b0$**At_Symbol_Here**twc.com>
In the early 1980's I worked in a research group at MSU in East Lansing on a home-made triple quadrupole mass spec, (the first triple quad ms in America) that used the then brand new turbo pumps. We had several catastrophic failures of the pumps, but all were directly attributable to minuscule debris falling into the pump from substances inside the mass spec. For example, one "improvement" we tried for the machine was to put small ceramic bead-like insulation on the otherwise bare copper wires in the guts of the machine. We had been having problems with the wires being bent by the reassembly process and shorting out, so the instrument didn't work at all, and we had to take it apart again. What we didn't realize was that every time we had to open the machine to clean the ion source or fix any failing parts, the friction on those ceramic pieces, was causing tiny bits of ceramic to fall into the pumps. The pump would self-destruct, all the fan blades would shatter into tin!
y flying shrapnel, and the only reason no one was hurt was that the machine was inside a 14" aluminum pipe that had 3/8" thick walls, so the shrapnel just embedded in the inner walls. After the third pump failure, we removed the ceramic, having figured out it was the cause of the pump failure.
I don't remember who manufactured those pumps, but I know we reported the failures to them, and they helped us figure out the cause.
So my question about the most recent cases, has there been any work on the instrument that could have dropped any debris into the pump vanes (like fan blades), because we had failures with debris of about 0.1 mm size. It didn't take much.
Meg
Meg Osterby
Lead Chemistry Instructor
Western Technical College
400 7th St. N.
LaCrosse, WI 54601
osterbym**At_Symbol_Here**westerntc.edu
608-789-4714
"It's better to be careful 100 times, than to be killed once."
Mark Twain
-----Original Message-----
From: ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety [mailto:DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU] On Behalf Of Bruce Van Scoy
Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2017 8:04 PM
To: DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Exploding pumps trigger Sciex mass spectrometer alert
Fellow Listers,
The turbo pumps on the mass specs are critical components. Hundreds (if not thousands) of organizations require them for routine analysis to stay in business.
I'm curious.
I am familiar with centrifuge rotors exploding, but not mass spec pumps.
Yes they are high speed, the rules of physics centrifugal forces apply. I'm curious if this has occurred elsewhere, if it was reported and investigated to identify the root cause?
Why was a significant design change implemented with a new pump number in 2008, incorporating a double bolt design compared to the failed units that all had a single bolt design from the pumps manufactured since 2002? Could this be limited to the manufacturer, pumps manufactured within a CY (since both reported catastrophic failures occurred from pumps manufactured in 2002), or a pump design defect?
Have other catastrophic failures been reported and considered isolated instances? Where the incidents, critical mechanical components identified/tracked and were root cause analysis conducted?
These pumps have been in heavy, routine, and daily use for >15-years with only two incidents reported, with both failing in the same week? My statistics are weak, but what are those probabilities?
The article states that the root cause(s) has yet to be identified.
I'm curious if the actual occurrence rate could have been unnoticed/underreported or where these isolated incidences considering:
A. Both failures occurred within the same week.
B. Both of the catastrophic failures occurred from pumps manufactured in 2002.
I am a strong supporter of the CSB and have routinely used their investigative analysis for training from new-hires upward. I have not seen them or anyone else evaluate safety issues equivalent to this.
My questions are not based upon any person/corp/etc. receiving a OSHA citation.
Let's face it, if the incidence rate is occurring more than these two reported cases, which I believe it has, we are only biding our time until the shrapnel does injure someone.
But, I'll have to wait for the manufacturer's root cause analysis results, considering them as received. I respect the collective knowledge of this list and am looking forward to the positive/negative feedback.
Thank you,
BruceV
-----Original Message-----
From: ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety [mailto:DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU] On Behalf Of Secretary, ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety
Sent: Monday, March 27, 2017 8:09 AM
To: DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU
Subject: [DCHAS-L] Exploding pumps trigger Sciex mass spectrometer alert
http://cen.acs.org/articles/95/i13/Exploding-pumps-trigger-Sciex-mass.html
Exploding pumps trigger Sciex mass spectrometer alert
Global safety notice recommends shutdown of workhorse analytical chemistry tools
Scientific instrument maker Sciex has told owners of more than 2,000 mass spectrometers to immediately shut down the instruments because a catastrophic failure of turbo pumps manufactured by Agilent Technologies could ‰??result in serious injury or death.‰?? To date, Sciex says, no one has been injured.
According to a safety notice dated March 13 for owners of API 4000, API 4000 Qtrap, and API 5000 model mass spectrometers, the rotors of the TV 801 turbo pump can suddenly fragment and be ejected at high speeds. The pumps are used to create a high negative pressure in the instrument‰??s vacuum chamber.
Taking his API 4000 out of service will be financially crippling, says Bruce S. Levison, an assistant professor at the University of Toledo College of Medicine & Life Sciences who uses the machine to analyze tissue samples for pharmacologically relevant compounds. ‰??We stand to lose thousands of dollars per day in revenue,‰?? he says.
Sciex and Agilent have yet to determine the root cause of the failure. ‰??This situation is unprecedented both in the sheer size of the installation base affected and in the criticality of the recommendation,‰?? Inese Lowenstein, Sciex‰??s senior vice president of global sales and service, tells C&EN.
The workhorse mass spectrometers are used for a variety of chemical analyses and are in place around the world in academic, industrial, and government settings, Sciex says. The instruments were sold under brand names including Sciex, AB Sciex, MDS Sciex, and Applied Biosystems.
According to a safety notice dated March 13 for owners of API 4000, API 4000 Qtrap, and API 5000 model mass spectrometers, the rotors of the TV 801 turbo pump can suddenly fragment and be ejected at high speeds. The pumps are used to create a high negative pressure in the instrument‰??s vacuum chamber.
Taking his API 4000 out of service will be financially crippling, says Bruce S. Levison, an assistant professor at the University of Toledo College of Medicine & Life Sciences who uses the machine to analyze tissue samples for pharmacologically relevant compounds. ‰??We stand to lose thousands of dollars per day in revenue,‰?? he says.
Sciex and Agilent have yet to determine the root cause of the failure. ‰??This situation is unprecedented both in the sheer size of the installation base affected and in the criticality of the recommendation,‰?? Inese Lowenstein, Sciex‰??s senior vice president of global sales and service, tells C&EN.
The workhorse mass spectrometers are used for a variety of chemical analyses and are in place around the world in academic, industrial, and government settings, Sciex says. The instruments were sold under brand names including Sciex, AB Sciex, MDS Sciex, and Applied Biosystems.
Two catastrophic turbo pump failures within a week of each other earlier this year led to the safety notice. Sciex notified Agilent of the failures, and the two undertook a joint investigation leading to the shutdown recommendation. Lowenstein says Sciex has not received any more catastrophic failure reports since the notice first went out.
The two TV 801 pumps that failed were manufactured in 2002, Lowenstein says. The pump was discontinued in 2008 and replaced with a new design, the TV 902, which has double bolts securing the housing. The TV 801 has single bolts. Lowenstein figures that between 1,500 and 2,000 of the API model instruments in use have the older pump and should be shut down.
Sciex expects that affected instruments will be out of service until Agilent designs and assembles a repair kit that Sciex technicians will install sometime starting in mid-April. Costs to Agilent, Sciex, and customers for the repairs are still undetermined, Lowenstein says.
According to Scott Walden, a product specialist at Turbo Vacuum, an Orlando-based firm that repairs turbo pumps, a brand new TV-902 pump costs $26,000. Refurbished units cost between $12,000 and $18,000.
Many of Walden‰??s clients have shut down their Sciex mass spectrometers for liability reasons and are desperate to get the instruments back to work. ‰??We have a waiting list of 20 clients asking for the 902 pump,‰?? Walden says.
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This e-mail is from DCHAS-L, the e-mail list of the ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety.
For more information about the list, contact the Divisional secretary at secretary**At_Symbol_Here**dchas.org
---
This e-mail is from DCHAS-L, the e-mail list of the ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety.
For more information about the list, contact the Divisional secretary at secretary**At_Symbol_Here**dchas.org
---
This e-mail is from DCHAS-L, the e-mail list of the ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety.
For more information about the list, contact the Divisional secretary at secretary**At_Symbol_Here**dchas.org
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