Sunday, Mar 23, 2014 at 09:56
You are talikng 2 very differnet scenarios here.
If a gas bottle leaks or vents in a car , the gas will
pool and find a spark. If the leak is not large then even if the free gas ignites, the cylinder will not explode, only flare on the outside where the leak is or from the relief valve until the surrounding fire gets the cylinder so hot that the vessel cannot take the pressure.
This could be say 10 minutes or never. When you see a car with windows blown out etc this is really not a violent explosion as such but quick combustion. I guess the difference is that I have seen reports of drivers surviving with burns from these incidents.
The truck incident shown shows what happes when a external fire , say from spilt truck fuel gets gas bottles so hot over a long period of time that they explode. You could see cylinders venting minutes into the video.
The cylinders are in open air , or they could have been in a van I suppose, who could tell? But they exploded because of external heat heating the cylinders maybe from adjacent cylinders venting onto them.
This just does not happen with one cylinder in a car, or if it does it is so far along the chain of destruction that it is really irrelevant.
I recall seeing a photo of a Toyota landcruiser at AFAIR Uluru , that had a fridge left on gas in it and had burned to the ground but it didn't explode.
Regards Philip A
FollowupID:
811531