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"Before inerting became a commonplace safety measure, in the nineteen-seventies, tankers blew up surprisingly often, and with lethal consequences: in December,
by fergie 5y ago
"Before inerting became a commonplace safety measure, in the nineteen-seventies, tankers blew up surprisingly often, and with lethal consequences: in December, 1969, three of them exploded within seventeen days, killing four men"
- yread 5y agoInteresting, I had no idea. The tabloids can now run "10 resons why millennials think their tankers cannot explode"
- mlindner 5y agoHe didn't say they couldn't explode, he said the fuel itself can't explode, because there's not enough air and it's not vaporized. Liquids can't burn in air, only gasses can. (Technically it's possible to make a liquid oxidizer and evenly mix it into the fuel, in which case it should be able to burn, but that's not something that can happen normally as there are very few room temperature liquid oxidizers. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triethylborane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triethylborane and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triethylaluminium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triethylaluminium ))
- AstralStorm 5y agoEvery surface area of a liquid is essentially a gas due to vaporization, which is why oil spills burn. More importantly, high enough temperature and if you're unlucky the metals in the ship turn out to be thermite...
- mlindner 5y agoMetals aren't thermite, even more so you need tremendously high temperatures, and it needs to be sustained. Finally, liquid surfaces only burn if there is enough air firstly and enough temperature to sustain the flame. Dumping a match into a vat of kerosene will put out the match.