On Aug 17, 7:02 pm, "Shaun Van Poecke"
wrote:


....

an unusual way, splitting right down the side. It blew through the
relatively thin wall and landed about 30 feet away on the road. I was
outside the van trying to get in when it exploded. the safety release valve
did not operate, there is a current investigation being made by BOC as to
why.

This sounds to me like there was a problem with the overpressure burst
disk. Should have gone before the tank. Maybe the heat caused it to
not preform as it should have.


....


We did have a near miss last year while welding inside a copper smelting
pot. These pots are used by the mine and hold about 90 tonnes of copper.
You climb up a ladder to get inside, its like sitting in a giant coffee cup.

Ah... I should be OK here. I don't drink that much coffee! :-)oo

We weld tham back up with a dual shield filler with CO2 as the gas. The two
staff welding the pot had gone for lunch and had turned off the extraction
system for some peace and quiet. What had happened was the valve on the
welding unit which controls the gas flow had stuck 'on'. gas was
continuously pouring out the end of the nozzle at 20 litres a minute.



Actually this story does bring up a good point. I usually keep the
tank in an area that
is relatively closed in. So if the tank were to start leaking, the co2
might be able to
build up in the area.

Appreciate the comments.

DOC