From: "Horace Heffner"
This is an indication the door was opened by the blast prior to
the glass shards hitting it. The shards came through with
enough energy to cause widespread injuries. This is only
consistent with the primary energy of the blast being in the
1L-6 incubator, not the flask.
I think Mizuno had it right when he said: "The effluent hydrogen
and oxygen were mixed in the cell headspace. There 2 ~ 3 cc of
hydrogen at the time, although this is an open cell so only
minimal amounts of gas remain in the headspace. It is possible
that the tungsten cathode may have been exposed to the gas in
the headspace."
Even so - you neglect the major point Mizuno is making about the
rise in water temperature - captured by his temp. probe and data
logging. If we accept this as accurate:
There was 700 grams of H2O which was heated for only ten seconds.
Mizuno was not using much power, but the heating rate of 700 grams
of water in figure on page 31 shows a rise in water temperature of
60 C in about 10 seconds. This would constitute an energy input of
176,400 Joules!
Page 14 describes the input parameters - 15 volts and 1.5 Amps.
This is a power input of 22.5 watts for 10 seconds but the power
apparently accepted by the water was (DeltaT) (Mass of water) (1
calorie/gram)(4.2Joules/calorie) /10seconds = 60(700grams)
(4.2)/10 = 17,640 watts.
That is a gain of 780 for power output versus power input.
Elsewhere he calculates the gain in that same range.
This explosion was NOT due to "just" a few cc of hydrogen in the
headspace, nor even to that combined with much more outside the
headspeace.
Jones
- Re: Mizuno paper about explosion uploaded Jones Beene
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