Tilley FL6 explosion.

Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapour Explosion.

 

@David Shouksmith

BLEVE = boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion.


Cheers

Tony

EDIT: crossed with Henry...

 

Drove my Chevvy to the levee and my lantern had a BLEVE...

Thanks both...

 

Boyles Law I guess. ::Neil::

 

No, it's an abbreviation:
boiling liquid expanding vapour (BE) explosion, or
boiling liquid expanding vapor (AE) explosion.
The effect is similar to a fuel bomb, but this weapon uses explosives to evaporate/distribute the fuel, wheras at the tank explosion the fuel suddenly evaporates due to its temperature and the release of pressure.
BR, Martin

:EDIT: Ok, was too late, overlooked the second page of the thread...

 

Bleve = Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapour Explosion. Common when LP gas tanks are involved in fires.

There is a video explaining that has been around for many years, I saw it back in the 1970's as a Fire Brigade trainng film. It is probably on Youtube.

pronounced Ble as in blend, ve as in Bee

 

@David Shouksmith ,

David I think its bleve !
Due to overheated, fuel when the existing over pressure is released, by rupture of holding tank.

Now on topic: I know of at least two incidents with pressure lamps with this phenomenon:
1) a well known german collector with a gasoline donut accident in his garage. Which so far went good because he knew what happened due to his fire fighter profession.

2) on a personal occasion, when I re filled a hot (just went out) also gasoline donut with fresh fuel. The sudden raise of the pressure when pumping made me aware of the problem.

 

Hello everybody,

Sorry to bring this old thread back alive.
I always turn off my kerosene lamps by releasing the pressure from the tank (also my tilly fl6) but after reading this i kind of start to be afraid. I mean, kerosene normally doesn't burn at ambient temperatures, but if something goes wrong and the tank starts to get hot, doesn't this becomes dangerous? At a certain moment, the fuel vapours you release are hot enough to catch fire themselves,... This is the reason i release the pressure from my coleman milspec only a few minutes after it has stopped, not directly.

Related question, how hot do you guys think is still a safe temperature for a tank in general? (My petromax 100cp yesterday was to hot to hold by hand so i turned it off because i got concerned.)

Thx,

Toon

 

Many of you will probably have seen this before but I thought it timely to show it here, now.

 

If you could hold the tank with your bare hands for say, 10seconds or longer, then its way below 100 deg C. Any tank that is not already physically compromised would be relatively safe.
A physically compromised fount could rupture, not from the heat but just by normal operating pressures. If that happens on an operating petrol-fueled unit, even room temperature is unsafe.

 

That's with the assumptions that you're properly fuelling them with the usual fuels(kerosene, gasoline and such), NOT with some unstable, potentially explosive liquids such as hydrazine, ethylene oxide and some other 'fancy' stuffs.

 

Very interesting and sobering read. It behoves us to be ever careful when dealing with pressure vessels of fuel and naked flame.