Oxygen compatibility, materials and explosions

[broncobowsher]

When I was learning about welding (80s/90s) they would have a smoker light up. Take a hit of O2 off the torch (straight O2, not light) and blow through the cigarette. That one puff would light up, shoot flames in all directions, and burn a fresh cigarette back to the filter. That was just whatever was inhaled, I doubt it was 50%. That was the dangers of O2 in welding class. Then it went into never using oil on anything that touched O2, What happens if there is a flashback and the inside of the rubber hose catches fire, and the like.

 

[Magnus Lundstedt]

Keeping and using an oxygen cylinder designed for oxygen service is fine and safe.

It's the same with driving a car, Driving a car is safe, sometimes people **** up and someone get hurt, but thats life. Follow the rules and reccommendations and you the risk is very small, break the rules in the wrong way, the risk grows.

 

[Magnus Lundstedt]

I have survived 2 oxygen tank (AL30) deco bottles explosions. There was a fatality in north Florida where the employee was killed, and another fire 3 years ago where the high pressure hose let loose and caught fire. These were O2 cleaned deco bottles. Bad things can just happen for no reason.

There are always a reason, but it is sometimes not known.

 

[Magnus Lundstedt]

It doesn't even have to be a scuba compressor or a scuba tank. In the sport of paintball, there have been players (mainly kids) who have, in cleaning their equipment, lube either the quick disconnect fitting with WD-40 or a drop of their paintball gun oil. Then they connect to their paintball tank which are most commonly rated for 4500 psi but most only fill to 3000 because alum. 80's are the most common tanks out there and not everyone has a Haskel. This fill blows a bit of the WD-40 or oil into the tank. Just using HP air with only the 21% 02 in it, these tanks have exploded. Same principle as a Diesel engine. The combustion occurs due to the increased pressure even though there is only a smidgen of fuel present. When your compressor finally builds up a smidgen of oil in the right spot,,,,,BOOM

We used to put a drop of oil in the pneumathic chamber of spring loaded pellet guns, if i remember correctly we tripled the projectile speed at 1 meter from the barrel.

It was fun times

 

[Jack Hammer]

This incident is what really gave me respect for elevated O2 levels.

The Deco Stop

 

[tarponchik]

It's the same with driving a car, Driving a car is safe, sometimes people **** up and someone get hurt, but thats life. Follow the rules and reccommendations and you the risk is very small, break the rules in the wrong way, the risk grows.

"Safe" is a misleading word. If you say that driving is "safe" you won't be able to explain why so many people die while driving. If you say that driving is "not safe" you won't be able to explain why everyone is driving nevertheless. And following the rules, while helpful, gives you no guarantees. Movie director Alan Pakula (To Kill The Mokingbird), for example, died because someone lost a metal pipe on the road and it somehow went flying into the air. 2% of all accidents are due to car design or manufacturing faults. This is not great number but it is still more than zero. So driving, while considered "safe", increases your chances to die or sustain serious injury no matter how strictly you follow the rules.

 

[Neilwood]

"Safe" is a misleading word. If you say that driving is "safe" you won't be able to explain why so many people die while driving. If you say that driving is "not safe" you won't be able to explain why everyone is driving nevertheless. And following the rules, while helpful, gives you no guarantees. Movie director Alan Pakula (To Kill The Mokingbird), for example, died because someone lost a metal pipe on the road and it somehow went flying into the air. 2% of all accidents are due to car design or manufacturing faults. This is not great number but it is still more than zero. So driving, while considered "safe", increases your chances to die or sustain serious injury no matter how strictly you follow the rules.

There are no guarantees with anything in life but there are ways of reducing risk. With driving, you can choose to drive aggressively or defensively - both will get you to the destination most of the time but one has higher risk than the other.

With regards to oxygen handling procedures, the understanding of these has been paid in blood (significant amounts of injuries and deaths from mishandling). If the procedures are followed closely, the risk drops to something approaching zero. Choose to ignore the procedures and the risk rises exponentially. People might have an understanding of fire under normal conditions but few have an understanding of fire in an oxygen rich environment (material that is normally considered non combustible becomes highly flammable).

 

[tarponchik]

There are no guarantees with anything in life but there are ways of reducing risk. With driving, you can choose to drive aggressively or defensively - both will get you to the destination most of the time but one has higher risk than the other.

With regards to oxygen handling procedures, the understanding of these has been paid in blood (significant amounts of injuries and deaths from mishandling). If the procedures are followed closely, the risk drops to something approaching zero. Choose to ignore the procedures and the risk rises exponentially. People might have an understanding of fire under normal conditions but few have an understanding of fire in an oxygen rich environment (material that is normally considered non combustible becomes highly flammable).

The risk never goes down to zero. With driving, there are the abovementioned vehicle failures, there are also road conditions (obscured signs, broken traffic lights, etc) and obstacles (deer, moose, fallen objects, potholes etc); there are driver's decision errors (false assumptions of other's action and misjudging the gap to other vehicles or their speed being the most common), performance failures (overcompensation, panic/freezing, etc) and non-performance failures (fatigue blackouts, heart attacks, etc). Accidents, directly related to rules violations, have only a modest share: too fast for conditions 8.4%, too fast for curve 4.9%, illegal maneuver 3.8%, following too closely and aggressive driving 1.5% each (the percentages reffer to the number of total driver's error-related accidents, not to the total number of accidents). Same with oxygen. No matter how good you are with rules you can get distracted, get a wrong piece of equipment, drop the tank while moving, etc.

 

[CT-Rich]

Anyone remember Dr Deep?

 

[Wookie]

Anyone remember Dr Deep?

No comparison. He was going to die, no question. Mac may survive.