I couldn't tell ya how many times I've seen the film of the Hindenberg
airship, and I've never once heard it described as an explosion.. it burned,
and the airfield and the town were still there after the fire was put out.
No mushroom cloud, no deafening boom.. you could hear the reporter
describing the devastating umm, fire.
A science/aeronautics show on PBS indicated that the most recent research
had proved that the fabric skin burned the way it did, because the formula
of the paint was essentially.. Thermite.
Iron oxide, aluminum powder and the flammable binder of resins that made up
the paint.
The researcher was well experienced and well educated in what he was
analyzing, and he had an actual sample of the ship's fabric.
I'd prefer not to be trapped in a burning vehicle, but hydrogen fueled
vehicles probably won't be designed with 1930's technology. Or Ford's Pinto
design, for that matter.
Other than that, I don't know much about the present technology.
WB
..........
metalworking projects
www.kwagmire.com/metal_proj.html
"Doug Miller" wrote in message
...
In article . com, Don
Stauffer in Minnesota wrote:
One of the things that gets me on the "hydrogen bandwagon" is the
claim that they need to get research money to develop cheaper fuel
cells. But if we DID have a good source of hydrogen, we don't need
fuel cell cars.
I disagree. A fuel cell liberates hydrogen on demand; the alternative to
using
fuel cells in a hydrogen-powered vehicle is to carry a tankful of
hydrogen --
thus turning every car on the road into a rolling bomb. *Any* breach of
that
tank (in a collision, for example), combined with *any* source of
ignition,
will result in a devastating explosion. (Does the name "Hindenberg" ring a
bell?)
Adapting an engine to run on hydrogen is not that
much harder than adapting it to run on NG or LP. It is very low
octane, but exhaust gas recirculation (steam) takes care of that
problem.
It's the safety aspect that worries me.
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
It's time to throw all their damned tea in the harbor again.
--
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