| The Breakroom > The Water Cooler |
| Boiler Explosion |
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| PTsideshow:
--- Quote from: kwackers on July 24, 2011, 04:43:25 PM ---I was told that copper boilers are safer because when it goes it goes it goes in a somewhat less catastrophic manner. Is that true? To put some perspective on it though - you're more likely to be killed in a traffic accident on the way to the show. --- End quote --- I think on that it is the joints that let go,since they were generally silver soldered. Before a rupture in the shell. Not really safer if you are close and it goes scalding is a terrible way to be injured. Boiled alive was a description used in a paper or more aptly put by a doctor, in a newspaper interview "Boiled ¾'s dead" when Fords Rouge plant power house had a gas line explosion. That took out a high pressure steam line. The poor bastard lingered for almost a week be fore he died! The doctor said all we could do was keep him pumped up with morphine and hope he didn't wake up! Because the one time he did, his screams could be heard all over the hospital. If you read the statement by Semple from the British steam group in the link above I gave he states that they have the inspections etc. that it is rare that an accident like that could happen there. I am sorry but here in the states with some of the A$$holes at these shows I have meet and their ignorance of the equipment and operations. "most common statement I'm told I don't need no damn license, My granpappy taught me when I was 6 years old!" that may be true but the fact remains, Granpap couldn't read the instructions and was taught by an illiterate farm hand! And what ever you were taught you have lost to many braincells for the remaining knowledge to be of any use. To many people have too high and over inflated opinion of themselves, just because they have inherited a rusted and busted traction engine here in the states. A couple years ago one guy was upset as they wouldn't let him steam up an engine he had pulled out of a field a couple weeks before. The trip on the trailer had broken a rusted out area around some of the lap joints rivets. Granted it probably wouldn't have held 2psig (17 pounds pressure). Since I'm in charge of the show physical set up and air supply at the N A M E S expo. I get at least two geniuses each show telling me we are wusses for not using steam. I smile and tell them I don't discuss safety matters with idiots that don't have a clue what they are talking about! First most of the venues used are owned or operated by the cities. They have insurance regulations anybody using the arena has to follow. Fire dept regulations and inspections. Building department/electrical not to mention that the state or county can come in and do fire or other inspections at anytime. Then there is the groups insurance carrier and the cost per attendee ticket that goes to insurance cost. Which is climbing every year, because of the sue happy people. Then finally from what I have seen of some of the tin plate toy type boilers, I wouldn't want to have them running on steam! So I may be over sensitive about this kind of thing, but with the rates the insurance are charging if you can find it. Won't be long be long before the traction engine crowd here is pulling construction compressors behind their engines. Even one more small/slight accident with a working antique engine and operating on steam will be a memory here in the states. Or so I have been told, an Insurance guy at the last show! |
| kwackers:
--- Quote from: PTsideshow on July 24, 2011, 05:35:42 PM ---If you read the statement by Semple from the British steam group in the link above I gave he states that they have the inspections etc. that it is rare that an accident like that could happen there. --- End quote --- Can't say I'm aware of any accidents over here. I know model boilers have to undergo regular testing to get a certificate and if other clubs are anything to go by our tester "works to rule". For visitors if it doesn't have a current certificate it doesn't run. I would expect that full sized boilers are even more well serviced in the rules and regs department... I've never known anyone complain about this, I mean it's common sense - if your boiler can't pass a safety examination then it's plainly dangerous! The only 'payout' I'm aware of from our club was to a woman in a white dress who got 'smuts' on it - which was a bit rich considering she'd been warned before getting onto the train of the danger but insisted and then when dirt did get on it to decide it was a problem! |
| PTsideshow:
The biggest difference in between you and us, is you have had a longer history of both the full size and model hobbyist and certificates for the hobbies. Real organized model shows, started and were patterned after the big show outside London about 25 years ago by the founding members of the NAMES group. Here in Michigan it is the dia of the boiler and if you charge to the general public for rides determine the status of the boiler. Even a donation box will change the rules you operate under. Also there is a line between antique boilers and commercial boilers, and the inspection is very different but that is fast changing. Then add into the fact that the culture of the viewing public is different and people and lawyers sue over things that most wouldn't even give a second thought. As you have pointed out. So there is a new direction in the clubs attitude about inspections, and running outside or inside a building. Air inside and my be heading air outside. Mostly again being forced on them by the insurance carriers for the groups and the property owners that used to allow use of their land for the shows. |
| GWRdriver:
--- Quote from: DaveH on July 24, 2011, 02:39:23 PM ---I am just wondering has there been many boiler explosions - talking model type size boilers, steel, copper, brass. -Dave --- End quote --- Dave, I could write a book on this but I will try to keep it short, to answer your question simply . . . no. A friend of mine in the UK and I have between us roughly 80 years of experience building and operating miniature hobby steam boilers, and we have tried to make a study of reported miniature hobby boiler accidents, specifically explosions, meaning the virtually instantaneous catastrophic release of pressure resulting in personal injury. What we found was that there have been NONE. Let me repeat that, there have been NO reported catastrophic failures. In fairness I have to qualify the findings by saying our research was limited to REPORTED occurrences and we cannot know how many, or if any, were not reported. There have been several documented deaths in the "hobby" steam world, the best known are the Ohio traction accident and the steam launch accident in England, but while owned and operated by "amatuers" and "hobbyists" but both of those accidents involved full size power boilers, both riveted steel, which were originally designed and built for commercial use. These should not be confused with miniature model hobby boilers - miniature boilers and full size industrial power boilers, whatever their size, are two different animals and each has its own science and technology. My specific speciality is the miniature copper boiler, of which I have built over 100, half of which were my design, and I need to correct a couple of the assertions and assumpions which have been made. First, copper was not chosen because it would release an explosion, or overpressure, in a less catastrophic manner. It was chosen because it was a widely available, it was maleable material which could be easily beaten into the required shapes, it was high on the nobility scale and resistant to corrosion, it took solder extremely well, and it had sufficient tensile strength to meet the needs of modelers. Until perhaps the 1930's most miniature hobby copper boilers were of riveted and soft soldered construction. Another accidental but convenient "fail-safe" of copper is that it is such a fast conducter of heat that in normal operation one would have to work hard or be very careless to create a heating condition that would melt either copper or silver solder. Unfortunately this does happen, and more regularly than we would like to admit. The next assumption that needs to be corrected is that properly made and silver soldered miniature cooper boilers do NOT always fail, or even tend to fail, at the soldered seams, with two exceptions. Controlled experiments in both England and Australia have shown that silver soldered test boilers, steamed to failure, invariably fail at the barrel (by splitting), not from a seam separation. In these tests flues do collapse but don't fail. This should not come as a surprise because while the tensile strength of copper is between 14kps and 25kps, depending upon operating temperature and degree of prior annealing, the tensile strength of 45% silver solder (the preferred alloy) varies between 60 and 70kpsi. The failure will occur at the point of least resistance which is in the copper, not in a sound solder joint. There has never been a reported incident of miniature boiler failure due to a split barrel and is one reason why seamless hard-drawn copper tube is always specified for minitaure boiler barrels and flues. The exceptions mentioned are that in reported miniature locomotive boiler failures (not explosions), where there is a loss of pressure due to a failed component rendering the boiler inoperable, the failures generally occur in two areas: By far the most frequently reported is in the flues, either by simple tube structural failure (collapse or perforation) or by failure of the silver solder seal at the flue ends. The least frequent reported failure is the separation of the outer wrapper of the firebox water leg from the mud ring. It should be noted that both of these failures occur in locations where the heat or corrosion is most concentrated and there is high likelihood of accidental overheating. Now, to make a comment about full size industrial power boilered equipment., specifically US antique traction. I agree with PT in so many words . . . the antique tractor hobby seems to be full of good ol' boys who resist any kind of testing or regulation program and rely on the other good ol' boys on the show committee or Fair Board to look the other way while they do business as usual. I'm like PT, I will no longer go near one. To some extent the same has been true of miniature locomotive boilers and US club operation but the spectre of liability is about to bring the wink & nod to an end. Oddly enough, the thing that is currently of greatest concern to insurors of miniature railways, public or private, and clubs is not boilers, it's passenger personal injury liability. The insurance companies couldn't care less about boilers . . . there's no exposure there . . . there's no incidence of boiler accident injury claim. All the most recent claims have come from injured riders. |
| DaveH:
GWRdriver, Thank you very much. :) What a fantastic informative answer. :clap: :clap: :clap: I thank you again for taking the trouble to write. I was going to make a boiler, then I thought may be not, now after reading your post I'm back on making one :D Many thanks DaveH |
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