No Evacuation For Drew

 

1. "Truck crash closes Route 78 near Clinton”

   I read that headline and the first thing that crossed my mind was, “Ooooo, did they get her?!?”

   Then I read it and was all disappointed.  Darn the luck.

   > And I wouldn’t have thought that liquid oxygen was much of a hazmat affair,
   > though it could have frozen some stuff, or really aided any fires, if it
   > had broken loose.

   That’s the real danger - in the presence of a spark, in 100% oxygen, practically anything will burn.  A fire would quickly engulf the tank and could cause it to rupture and the oxygen to expand at an incredibly fast rate, feeding any fire.  Usually it’s fuel sources in contained tanks that under heat/pressure risk rupturing and turning into a BLEVE (boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion).  It might be possible for Liquid Oxygen too… Gah, that would be insane.

   (Look up BLEVE’s on Youtube for some awesome videos.)

   So, I suspect the water wasn’t to “cool it down” (as you noted, Liquid Oxygen is -321 deg F) but to suppress any potential sources of ignition/combustion.

   Posted by Argentium G. Tiger       06/25/2009  at  05:00 PM  

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