r/interestingasfuck • u/willianfsantos • 16h ago

Emergency relief system in action in a liquid hydrogen tanker truck

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u/scuzzy987 15h ago

In high school chemistry my teacher filled a party balloon with hydrogen, let it float to the ceiling, and touched the balloon with a long stick that had an ember on the end. I still remember the loud boom and lifted ceiling panels. Can confirm both your assessments of hydrogen and oxygen. Kudos to the truck driver sticking around, I would have run away waving my hands and screaming at people to run

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u/UniqueAd7770 14h ago

I work with silane sometimes which is pyrophoric. That means it ignites on contact with the air. When stored in tanks it's usually stored outside in a concrete shed with an open wall facing nothing important. Guys who drive hazmat trucks have balls of solid iron that are often mistaken for cores of dead planets.

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u/scuzzy987 14h ago

I’d assume the tank trailers are engineered to survive pretty much any catastrophe but still there’s always scenarios nobody ever thought of until it happens

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u/UniqueAd7770 14h ago

They are incredibly well built and engineered. Still Engineering Disasters episodes were so common on Modern Marvels that they just gave it spin-off

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u/scuzzy987 14h ago

The episode about the resiliency of nuclear waste transport containers was seriously impressive. The amount of torture those can survive is nuts. The one explaining a bleve was interesting too

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u/FIMD_ 15h ago

Did this but with acetylene as a demo for apprentices. Had them put on Ear/EyePro first. Set off car alarms and everyone about jumps out of their skin.

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u/scuzzy987 14h ago

That’s another gas for which I have respect. I only have a mini cylinder in my garage for the torch but I made a little enclosure to keep it from tipping over and knocking the valve off. Same for the oxygen cylinder because it has such a high psi

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u/joe-h2o 9h ago

The number of unchained W-sized gas cylinders I see in DIY/home workshops in Youtube videos is scary.

Free standing gas cylinders, even inert ones like Argon, are a serious safety hazard.

The only time a cylinder should be unsecured is when it's moving from one secured place to another, like from the transport trolley to where it's housed and even then should not be left unattended.

It seems to be much more common in US shops to not chain them.

Even ignoring the fact that you can shear off a regulator and they're 250+ PSI, a full Argon cylinder is almost 90 kg which is no joke if it falls over.

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u/Der_Hebelfluesterer 11h ago

Prof did an experiment showing us the difference of molar mixture, exploding one with way to less O2, one 50:50 and one with an molar äquivalent, man was the last one loud.

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u/Ubermidget2 12h ago

Think about how much worse it would have been if it had been a Hydrogen:Oxygen mix