Dangers of Acetylene and Oxygen Bottles

[Travelover]

Did anybody see the Mythbusters where they sent the Oxygen bottles through a block wall?

YouTube - MythBusters: Air Cylinder Rocket

 

[Renze]

Something more i learned when talking with the retired workers of our company during the friday after work beer ritual:

Acetylene bottles can burn inside. The bottle turns hot and will explode. Once, a company had a flame inside the bottle. They threw it in the nearby canal, and the fire brigade fished it up every friday to check its temperature. After a week or 6, the fire was finally out.
When acetylene bottles are dropped violently, they can also get hot and eventually self ignite (unless cooled)

Oxygen bottles are also dangerous when there is grease on the brass nipples and valves. Dont ever grease the thread of your oxygen bottles !

 

[ultrarunner]

A while ago I posted a U-tube video showing how a gas cylinder becomes a rocket when the gas valve is broken off.
BTW, always store a cylinder up-right, changed and with the protective cap ON. And that goes double in transport.

More than half the cylinders I receive each week are the type that have no provision for safety caps... Oxygen, Nitrous Oxide, Nitrogen.

 

[patrick_g]

Just because a disaster doesn't happen every day doesn't mean carrying bottles in an enclosed space is smart. Folks have played Russian roulette and survived too but in general it is thought to be risky behavior.

The odds of being hit by lightning sometime in your life are on the order of
one in five thousand. So go sit under a lone tree with an acetylene bottle in your lap during lightning storms and really feel macho showing us mere mortals how foolish we are.

Oh,and remember real men don't put the safety covers over the top of the oxygen or CO2 or... bottles since not every time they transport a bottle do they break the valve off.

Patrick

 

[Bird]

Something more i learned when talking with the retired workers of our company during the friday after work beer ritual:

Acetylene bottles can burn inside. The bottle turns hot and will explode. Once, a company had a flame inside the bottle. They threw it in the nearby canal, and the fire brigade fished it up every friday to check its temperature. After a week or 6, the fire was finally out.
When acetylene bottles are dropped violently, they can also get hot and eventually self ignite (unless cooled)

Oxygen bottles are also dangerous when there is grease on the brass nipples and valves. Dont ever grease the thread of your oxygen bottles !

I'd heard of avoiding grease on oxygen bottles, but never heard of acetylene bottles burning inside. That's new to me.

 

[Steve C]

Just because a disaster doesn't happen every day doesn't mean carrying bottles in an enclosed space is smart. Folks have played Russian roulette and survived too but in general it is thought to be risky behavior.

The odds of being hit by lightning sometime in your life are on the order of
one in five thousand. So go sit under a lone tree with an acetylene bottle in your lap during lightning storms and really feel macho showing us mere mortals how foolish we are.

Oh,and remember real men don't put the safety covers over the top of the oxygen or CO2 or... bottles since not every time they transport a bottle do they break the valve off.

Patrick

real men would stay in the van and not stand behind it like this guy
anybody bring Marshmellow's??
I sure hope that was a dummy, not just someone that was real dumb.

YouTube - Oxy-Acetylene Cylinder explosion in a van

 

[kenstrac]

There's safety and there's STUPID I was installing new equipment and called the local temp agency for some help and told them I needed people that use cutting torches to remove the old machines.They sent over a crew and I asked who could use a torch 2 of them said they could and I took them aside and had them cut some steel.I gave them the usual safety speech and let them go at it, they were doing fine cutting up the equipment.
Lunch time rolls along and they all stayed in the building I went down the street for lunch,Was on the way back and I heard a loud bang ran in and found Styrofoam cups blown up all over the floor and a guy standing on top of a 5 gal pail.
I sent those 2 idiots home the rest of the crew told me that after I left for lunch they were putting oxy and acetylene in the cups and blowing them up and when I walked in he was ready to set off the pail with stupid standing on it.

 

[Egon]

http://www.usmra.com/repository/category/hot_work/oxyacetylene.ppt

Some details on handling storing bottles.

 

[sandman2234]

The reason for NEVER transporting Acytlene cylinders in a horizontal position, is due to the acetone in the cylinder reaching the valve during transport, and not having time to leach back down before opening the valve (into the regulator). The acetone damages the seals in the regulator almost immediately. If you must transport a acytlene cylinder not standing upright, the recommended time is 24 hours before using it, once it has been stood upright.
How many of you guys know what the inside of a acytlene cylinder looks like? I had the pleasure of removing several hundred tops of cylinders(close to maybe thousands?) over a period of a couple of years under a government contract. We used torches on most of them, but decided to set up a couple of saws to run while we cut them with a torch to speed up the process. A video of me cutting the top off a acetylene cylinder would give a bunch of people the ebee-jeebies, but unfortunately we didn't make any, mostly due to the process having a few "trade secrets".
Putting a torch to a empty (or full) acytlene bottle is not recommended or advised, so don't take chances with your life.
I have my doubts about the true reasons for the salesman recommending mapp over acytlene due to mapp being easier to smell, as the previous poster mentioned. Acytlene gas is non odorous, so an agent is added when manufacturing it, that is typically called "rotten eggs". Maybe somebody is scrimping on the odor causing agent, but I doubt it, as the amounts inserted are required by Federal law. Probably just a matter of him making more money on the sale of mapp gas or some other sales quota thing. I have a poor sense of smell and can smell the "rotten egg" smell of acytlene a mile away!
I can walk two cylinders at a time, but am slow at it. I can do one as fast as I can walk, but I don't do it for a living either.
David from jax

 

[MikeD74T]

Something more i learned when talking with the retired workers of our company during the friday after work beer ritual:

Acetylene bottles can burn inside. The bottle turns hot and will explode. Once, a company had a flame inside the bottle. They threw it in the nearby canal, and the fire brigade fished it up every friday to check its temperature. After a week or 6, the fire was finally out.
When acetylene bottles are dropped violently, they can also get hot and eventually self ignite (unless cooled)

Oxygen bottles are also dangerous when there is grease on the brass nipples and valves. Dont ever grease the thread of your oxygen bottles !

Renze, Sounds like a little science & a lot of beer, but there is a basis for the story. Check out:
Encyclopedia of chemical processing and design, Volume 6

By John J. McKetta page 274.

Acetylene can undergo an exothermic reaction in the absence of oxygen that temperature regulated. However, it seems to me that the temperature required to initiate & maintain the reaction would exceed the capabilities of a normal acetylene cylinder ??? MikeD74T