Speaking Of the Hazards of Compressed Air Tanks

[George Jung]

Re: Speaking Of the Hazards of Compressed Air Tanks

Well.... a 270 does kick pretty good. Not sure I like the comparison!

[Jim Mahan]

Re: Speaking Of the Hazards of Compressed Air Tanks

Stored energy is always interesting.

My old man was the personnel manager, and safety officer, for Johns-Manville, back in the early sixties at their plant in LA. He told the story of this huge pressure chamber they used for production or testing of products. They made, back then, things like water mains and sewer lines for cities. He told the story of when he had to go see the site of a bad industrial accident involving the pressure chamber. This thing was large enough to put stacks of the big pipes inside, and had a massive big pressure door with a wheel lock like you see in submarine movies. Outside the door was the pressure gauge and a log to sign, and big warnings about waiting for the pressure to abate all the way after opening the valve before opening the door. The report indicated that there was still pressure when a new guy ignored the warning and opened the door, and the force slammed the heavy door open, crushing the guy, and killing him. My old man asked the tech supervisor in the plant why it would do that since the pressure reading was relatively small. The PSI wasn't very high but multiplied by the enormous volume under that pressure it was enough to blow open the heavy door with enough force to flatten the unfortunate tech.

[hawkeye54]

Re: Speaking Of the Hazards of Compressed Air Tanks

my brother just bought a fifty last week
looking forward to the day i get to shoot it

Geez, Paul, I used to have 2 actual .50 BMG machine guns _ mounted on tripods welded to the deck of my destroyer. The recoil of those was not to be believed. I can't even imagine the recoil of shooting a rifle with that cartridge, either prone or offhand.

When I was a young sailor, I went with a friend to a gun shop and bought a Marlin 336C in caliber .30-30; the friend bought a .458 Winchester . We went to a range, where I fired a few shots, he fired 6 shots offhand , made his shoulder into hamburger, and promptly sold the rifle. ( He was only wearing a thin sportshirt. )


Rick

[Nicholas Carey]

Re: Speaking Of the Hazards of Compressed Air Tanks

My old man was the personnel manager, and safety officer, for Johns-Manville, back in the early sixties at their plant in LA. He told the story of this huge pressure chamber they used for production or testing of products. They made, back then, things like water mains and sewer lines for cities. He told the story of when he had to go see the site of a bad industrial accident involving the pressure chamber. This thing was large enough to put stacks of the big pipes inside, and had a massive big pressure door with a wheel lock like you see in submarine movies. Outside the door was the pressure gauge and a log to sign, and big warnings about waiting for the pressure to abate all the way after opening the valve before opening the door. The report indicated that there was still pressure when a new guy ignored the warning and opened the door, and the force slammed the heavy door open, crushing the guy, and killing him. My old man asked the tech supervisor in the plant why it would do that since the pressure reading was relatively small. The PSI wasn't very high but multiplied by the enormous volume under that pressure it was enough to blow open the heavy door with enough force to flatten the unfortunate tech.

It's like vacuum bagging. It's not the pressure differential. It's pressure differential multiplied by the surface area. A 3x6 foot door has a surface area of 2,592 square inches. With a 3 PSI pressure differential, that's 3 PSI * 2,592 square inches, which is 7,776 pounds of force working on that 3x6 foot door.

[Nicholas Carey]

Re: Speaking Of the Hazards of Compressed Air Tanks

When I was a young sailor, I went with a friend to a gun shop and bought a Marlin 336C in caliber .30-30; the friend bought a .458 Winchester . We went to a range, where I fired a few shots, he fired 6 shots offhand , made his shoulder into hamburger, and promptly sold the rifle. ( He was only wearing a thin sportshirt. )

My dad had a Marlin .444 Magnum lever action. It did have a recoil pad, I can tell you from experience that an afternoon at the range with that left you feeling like you'd spent the afternoon as Muhammad Ali's sparring target.

[Ed Harrow]

Re: Speaking Of the Hazards of Compressed Air Tanks

High-pressure gas bottles can be quite interesting. I wold not want to be that close in that 'experiment'.

[sonofswen]

Re: Speaking Of the Hazards of Compressed Air Tanks

I knew an idi..I mean a guy who used to shoot propane tanks and from what he said it was quite the flame/explosion..someplace in Arizona.oy

[Canoeyawl]

Re: Speaking Of the Hazards of Compressed Air Tanks

It's like vacuum bagging. It's not the pressure differential. It's pressure differential multiplied by the surface area. A 3x6 foot door has a surface area of 2,592 square inches. With a 3 PSI pressure differential, that's 3 PSI * 2,592 square inches, which is 7,776 pounds of force working on that 3x6 foot door.

The quick calcs for a 4 foot block wall with rainwater behind it will yield similar results, and the wall, maybe/probably the hill behind it will come down if those drain holes get plugged with mud.
Only .4 psi per foot of elevation... those "inches" add up quickly