OT__For All Tesco PBW Games Playing and hosting

[tbontob]

I couldn't have said it better.

[Thermodyne]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
Yes, the Hindenburg was the hydrogen blimp that blew up. The Lindenburg was the giant blimp filled with moldy cheeze. (See how I tied all the threads together with that comment? ain't I clever? )

Well as long as we are correcting everyone in this thread, I take a little poke at Geo

The ship in question was a rigid airship, not a blimp. Blimps are still very much in favor, while the rigid exist only in memory and advanced design papers. Of note on the Hindenburg is the fact that the gas was not grounded to the airframe, and the ability of low pressure hydrogen to store static energy was unknown at that time. So when the air frame was grounded, the gas would have been required to overcome the built in impedance of the gas bag before it could discharge. In doing so, it would have created a spark. Anyone who works with rotary wing aviation can tell you how much energy an ungrounded airframe can hold. So while the sabotage theory makes for a good story, it was in all likelihood an engineering short fall.

[tesco samoa]

oh the humanity...

Well during the down time I missed about 4 pbw turns...

[Rigelian]

I hesitate to join a thread that's degenerated into bickering already... but what the hell. Back on the Hindenberg, there has been some pretty convincing modern research on this. The conclusion was that it was not the Hydrogen that was responsible for the (intial at least) combustion. Apparently the doping agent used on the outer skin, in the right conditions, was highly flammable and this was what caused the disaster. I saw a documentary where they had analysed the old film and could demonstrate from the spread of the flames that it was the skin and not the gas that was burning.

As for the relative danger of Hydrogen gas - well, here's an anecdote for you. Back in chemistry class about 20 years ago, a popular (with the kids anyway) experiment involved producing a test-tube full of hydrogen. I forget the exact reaction involved, it may have been some kind of acid-on-iron-filings thing. Anyway, that little test-tube containing hydrogen was then ignited using a lighted taper, producing one hell of a bang and (sometimes, though I never saw it) busting the test-tube entirely. From that I have always concluded that hydrogen/oxygen reactions can release a lot of energy.

However, I had also heard the argument that Fyron puts forward that Hydrogen airships are not as dangerous as they are generally perceived to be. So, why is that? Does that kind of violent small-scale reaction just not scale up?

[tesco samoa]

Did you know the the municipality had to inform itself in writing 30 days in advance that it was digging so that the municipality could determine if lines were buried there.
This did not happen.

There is a fine for this.

So I asked our mayor if the municipality was going to fine the municipality over this.

( The mayor lives around the conor so you can drop in and say hi. He makes a really good jerk chicken on the bbq )

He just laughted

[Slick]

As someone who works with Hydrogen gas, among many other gasses, I can say that both industry standards and safety practices as well as OSHA requirements do consider Hydrogen as very dangerous.

For further reading on OSHA Hydrogen safety requirements:

http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owad..._Version=FALSE

Slick.

[Fyron]

Compressed hydrogen is dangerous, yes. But, the Hindenburg and other airships have given the public a false impression that it is much more dangerous than it is. People will gladly get into a car powered by exploding gasoline, but will have great fears/reservations of getting into a car powered by exploding hydrogen, even though it is really not more dangerous than the exploding gasoline (as that is essentially how cars are powered). And no, not everyone would react this way, but a lot of people do. But the thing is, much less hydrogen has to be used as fuel than gasoline (and other fuels commonly used), so the net effect is that using hydrogen is not much more dangerous than other fuels in most applications.