Oxygen tank explosion injures one - Italy

[Graeme Tolton]

Glad to hear nobody was killed! Hopefully we will end up hearing what actually caused this. Imo, the whole world should have either stuck with the imperial system or switched to metric. If it were mismatched threads, this would have been avoided. That is yet to be seen though.

 

[DandyDon]

Glad to hear nobody was killed! Hopefully we will end up hearing what actually caused this. Imo, the whole world should have either stuck with the imperial system or switched to metric. If it were mismatched threads, this would have been avoided. That is yet to be seen though.

It's certainly a good risk to learn. I had no idea, but then we don't get many overseas tanks or valves over here.

 

[nimoh]

It's pretty easy to see from this video that a cylinder could go 150 feet without combustion

Scuba Tank - Valve Cut - YouTube

 

[Mike]

That dude wacking the tanks will eventually get nominated for a Darwin award if he doesn't watch out!

 

[nimoh]

That dude wacking the tanks will eventually get nominated for a Darwin award if he doesn't watch out!

I agree. It is nice of him to put his life on the line to satisfy my curiosity

 

[broadreach]

Wouldn't a mismatched valve separate from the tank when it gets filled? Why would that happen on the dock?
The only explanation I can think of is perhaps being out in the sun the tank heated up and pressure increased. Any thoughts?

 

[Graeme Tolton]

It's certainly a good risk to learn. I had no idea, but then we don't get many overseas tanks or valves over here.

There are no markings on the valve that will indicate the threads are sae or metric.

Tanks are all marked and simply wont get filled without proper regional markings (tc or dot for n/a), im sure eu has similar designations.

 

[Griffo]

Glad to hear nobody was killed! Hopefully we will end up hearing what actually caused this. Imo, the whole world should have either stuck with the imperial system or switched to metric. If it were mismatched threads, this would have been avoided. That is yet to be seen though.

What I can't believe is that they chose a Metric thread, which was close enough that the valves and tanks would actually mate with the 3/4 thread. It would have been so easy to choose a 27mm or 30mm thread that made it immediately obvious. Instead (and I'm assume it was to save on manufacturing costs) we have a situation where people will for the next who know how long be put at danger by home hackers who don't know the difference.

Wouldn't a mismatched valve separate from the tank when it gets filled? Why would that happen on the dock?
The only explanation I can think of is perhaps being out in the sun the tank heated up and pressure increased. Any thoughts?

That other incident I linked to only failed at 220Bar. I can imagine that a different valve on a different day might survive to 240 or even higher before failing.

 

[Graeme Tolton]

Reminds me of chrysler 2.2/2.5l engines. Some of them had 11mm head bolts while others had 12 mm head bolts. If you were unlucky enough to try to install an 11 mm bolt into a 12 mm block, you will effectively remove all useable thereads from the engine block.

Once again , this is pure speculation. In all likelyhood, we will never know what happened here.

 

[Griffo]

There are no markings on the valve that will indicate the threads are sae or metric.

Tanks are all marked and simply wont get filled without proper regional markings (tc or dot for n/a), im sure eu has similar designations.

Actually all my valves say 3/4 on them. I've only got 4 and they are all fairly new, so maybe it's a recent thing, i'd certainly never noticed before this thread appeared and I went looking.