3 ms·
A kitchen oil fire is a different effect. They're not hot enough to disassociate water molecules. What happens typically is that the water floats the oil, and t
by sonofhans 6y ago
A kitchen oil fire is a different effect. They're not hot enough to disassociate water molecules. What happens typically is that the water floats the oil, and the fire, remaining on top of the oil, spreads more rapidly.
Another effect is when the fire (and typically, the cooking vessel) are hot enough to vaporize the water. This rapid vaporization spreads oil droplets rapidly, allowing much more of the oil to burn at once. It can appear explosive, even though it's just rapidly-expanding steam spreading fine oil droplets.
- lanstin 6y agoI think "rapidly expanding and exothermic" is equivalent to "explosive" at least functionally.
- SAI_Peregrinus 6y agoI'd agree that it's explosive. I suspect they were trying to make a distinction between a detonation and a deflagration. A detonation is an explosion with a supersonic shock wave. A deflagration is an explosion without such a shock wave. An oil fire getting water dumped on it is a deflagration, but almost certainly not a detonation. A metal fire getting water dumped on it can result in a detonation. Detonations are vastly more destructive in general than deflagrations.
- sonofhans 6y agoExactly that. Thank you. You know better words for it than I do :)
- jschwartzi 6y agoYeah in the case of water on burning kitchen oil it just makes a big fuel-air bomb if the oil is atomized enough. Kinda like one of these: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i20zvZ-3MMw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i20zvZ-3MMw Note the initial dispersion of some atomized material followed by a triggered explosion some time later.