30,000 mile oil

[Lawrence C Leung]

In some circles, this explosion is called a BLEVE, short for:

Boiling (liquid to gas expansion, occurs everytime LPG leaves the liquid
state)
Liquid
Expanding
Vapor 
Explosion

Quite fun to illustrate in something like an empty water cooler bottle.
Pour in 1 to 10 ml of any form of alcohol of 60% or more alcohol, swish
around, pour out, and light. Really entertaining in a dark room. This is
the firefighters greatest fear, as everything within the gas cloud goes
up all at once. 

LL - NY


On Mon, 22 Jan 2001 17:02:01+0000 quk at isham-research.freeserve.co.uk
writes:
>Propane is nasty stuff - the combination of a high specific heat and
>a low specific heat of evaporation means that releasing the pressure
>on a volume of liquid propane at room temperature results in the
>instant formation of a spherical cloud which is explosive at some
>point on its leading edge.  There was a major disaster on a Spanish
>campsite a few years back.
>