Overpressurizing / Overfilling steel tanks

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COVCI:
Boogie said, "No one has ever died from a tank exploding on them."

Hmm...cylinder exploded....guy died...

Not a tough one there Chuck.

Oh, well, EXCUSE me Chris!!!
 
Chris, was the tank in your story steel or alum and what size?

My Mechanics of Materials Prof brought in an alum tank that had exploded during filling because the owner had baked a new coat of paint on, pretty fierce stuff.

Ben
 
OK - How about this one...

No one has ever died from filling a current and properly inspected tank. However, lots of divers have died after draining current and properly inspected tanks.

I'm here all night folks. Try the veal.
 
Boogie711:
OK - How about this one...

No one has ever died from filling a current and properly inspected tank. However, lots of divers have died after draining current and properly inspected tanks.

I'm here all night folks. Try the veal.

I'd like to see 8 or 9 more. It just doesn't sing, you know?
 
No one has ever died from filling a current and properly inspected tank. However, lots of divers have died after draining current and properly inspected tanks.

Overfilling a pressure rated cylinder by a factor of %50 is a really bad idea. Even if people do it all the time, is it really worth the risk? Buy a high pressure tank, a bigger tank, or a rebreather if you need that much gas... You can give someone as much air as you want and some Darwin award candidate will manage to suck the damn thing dry. Why put all that extra stress on your tank and valves?
Ignoring material limits is a sure fire path to disaster, maybe not today, tomorrow, or a year from now, but it will happen. The fellow who remarked on people only adhering to the standards they choose to had a pretty good point. Death by massive blunt trauma is certainly not the way I'd want to go.
 
Genesis:
Yes, but it seems to me that if you want me to fill a tank for you, that you should be willing to stand next to it while I fill it :D

That way if it explodes you're my "human shield."

Sound good? :)

(I don't overfill tanks.)

Whatever.

I jack my tanks for a simple reason. More gas = longer, deeper dives. Why else would I do it.

Incidentally, my entire buddy team routinely fills their own tanks, so I don't need anyone else standing there. I'd rather personally fill my tanks any day than depend on someone else.

Finally, while I will overfill to some extent, I will not seal over the burst disks as I've heard is done down in cave country. My disks will still go before the tank wall.
 
Northeastwrecks:
Whatever.

I jack my tanks for a simple reason. More gas = longer, deeper dives. Why else would I do it.

Incidentally, my entire buddy team routinely fills their own tanks, so I don't need anyone else standing there. I'd rather personally fill my tanks any day than depend on someone else.

Finally, while I will overfill to some extent, I will not seal over the burst disks as I've heard is done down in cave country. My disks will still go before the tank wall.

But why not either use larger tanks (if you can manage them) and/or just take a stage? You'd have to pretty outrageously overfill a set of doubles to get more gas out of it than you'd get from a single AL80 stage...

Of course if you already HAVE a stage, then ok, at some point there are just too many bottles to deal with reasonably and it makes (some) sense.

But at that point, or perhaps before, aren't you better off ditching the OC system for a rebreather? Then you have LOTS of duration, lower cost of operation (especially with helium being what it is in cost) and a MUCH lighter and more streamlined configuration. You still need bailout of course, so all the "stuff" externally can't (safely) go away, but some of the load does.

Pretty much all of my diving is in the ocean, and I don't want runtimes much over an hour anyway for environmental reasons. A lot can change in an hour, and a lot more can change in two.

I might see if differently if I ever take a cave class.

I'm seriously considering ditching the OC gear about the same time I make the decision to go to Trimix. From the analysis that I've done thus far it actually appears to be no more dangerous than an OC system, in that there are both good and bad points to the CCR. One thing is certain though - you have a lot more time to figure out and solve a problem on a CCR than you do on OC before you're just plain screwed. While the CCR costs a good chunk of cash up front, on Trimix over time it should be significantly less expensive due to the cost of the Helium you (won't) burn through.
 

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