Damn the answers are good and fast here. So I take it not one engineer on this thought project thought of a ruptured air tank in a collision with a 28 gallon gas tank? I thought a ruptured gas tank does not explode unless the gas is first mixed with air.
I remember what Howard Huges did with an ax to his steam car. William Taylor Do you mean Howard Hughes? What did he do to a steam car? How old are you? Howard died in 1976, and I doubt he was swinging an axe for many, many years before that. A gas tank will explode without being ruptured at all if the fuel can be ignited. I saw a film once that showed gas tank safety. An un-ruptured tank was ignited and exploded quickly. Then they had a tank with a wire mesh on the inside, imagine 3-D chicken wire. That tank just burned and burned but never exploded. I forget the chemistry now. The point was: the wire mesh for one tank cost less than five dollars, it may have been less than a dollar, but car companies wouldn't use it. I think it only reduced volume by two percent. In 1966 cars had a standard of not leaking one ounce of gas a minute in a 30 MPH crash. I'm sure it's much higher now. So the point is cars can still explode, but they try and prevent the gas from leaking. I've also seen hydraulic and compressed air leaks that cut through steel. I can imagine the tank being placed so it has a small chance of being ruptured, and using devices to limit a high rate of flow if something happens to the line or fitting outside of the tank. Kevin Tarr I have memories of my favorite uncle pouring gas on a fire, twice! Nothing seriously bad happened, but seeing flames shooting out the top of a twenty foot chimney will always stay with me. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
