Re: Nitrogen VS Compressed air quenching

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Original poster: "Arpit Thomas" <arpit-at-inzo-dot-org> 



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On 3/05/2004 at 4:48 PM Tesla list wrote:

 >Original poster: "Jim Lux" <jimlux-at-earthlink-dot-net>
 >
 >Arpit wrote:
 > >
 > > How's carbon dioxide for quenching? I pinched an old (bit rusty) water
 > > heater made in 1988 off another house in my street which was going to be
 > > demolished, and carried it home. I'm using it as an air tank, and might
 >use
 > > it to power an air blast gap. Another potential use would be to put some
 > > chemicals in which would react and generate carbon dioxxide at a
 >pressure
 > > of about 6 or 7 atmospheres. I'd then use that to blast the gap :)
 >
 >I'd be a bit careful about filling a "bit rusty" tank with gas under
 >pressure.  If a water heater fails full of water, it just leaks, because
 >water is incompressible, so there's no "springyness" trying to make it come
 >apart (other than the pressure of the water supply, which is limited in
 >flow
 >rate).  That is, there's no stored energy in the pressurized water. Filling
 >it with pressurized gas makes a potential bomb, because the gas acts like a
 >spring and stores a lot of energy. Even a fairly small container (<1 liter)
 >when pressurized makes a pretty spectacular bang if it suddenly fails.
 >
 >This is why pressure vessels (i.e. scuba tanks, boilers) are tested full of
 >water (or some other fluid) in a hydrostatic test.


Yeah, I was worried by that :/ so i filled the thingey with water then 
attached a 10 dollar air pump to it and pumped it up to 185 psi. I left it 
for an hour or so and it didnt leak , so I'm hoping its safe! Its full of 
air at 60psi now.... so if I don't post for a while you'll know what's 
happened ;)