"Don Klipstein" wrote in message

stuff snipped

I would be leery about the ability to withstand 150 or 120 PSI being
valid at the highest temperature that can be encountered in this
application. I have had experience with boiling water causing PET soda
bottles to soften and go out of shape without any significant pressure at
all.

Strongly agree!

My dad was a safety engineer and often testified at trials as an expert
witness. Soda bottles have a rich history of litigation. If they are
dropped just right in a store, for example, the cap can blow off with enough
force to put out an eye, and it's happened many times, it's not just a freak
one-off occurrence. Injuries have lessened with plastic v. glass bottles,
but they have not vanished entirely.

Much engineering has gone into designing safer bottles (the odd star-shape
of the bottom is designed to "pop" visibly when dropped and provide some
visual warning that the bottle is overpressured. The screw threads on the
cap are interrupted for the same reason). Still, there are soda bottle
accidents every year in the US. Many are caused by shelf stockers insisting
on filling high shelves beyond capacity, making a floor drop from
considerable height all but certain.

Overpressurizing them for fun with kids around seems to be a pretty silly
idea. But they do make passable silencers for pistols if attached
correctly.

Search for "soda bottle eye injury" on Google to find many tales like this:

"We have come across six patients of ocular injuries due to CBB explosions
during a period of nearly two years. All the cases had unila*teral
involvement, right eye in four cases and left eye in two cases. All of these
patients had severe visual loss. Initial visual acuity, after the injury
ranged from loss of perception of light to finger counting at two meters
distance. In one case the eye was badly mutilated and had to be enucleated.
In five cases, the injury was caused by glass splinters, while in one case
it was due to the cap of the bottle. The injury due to the bottle cap was
interesting in that it left a clear impression of its crenated edge on the
skin of the lids and the cornea which gives some indication of the force of
the impact. In four cases the CBB exploded without provocation."

Source:
http://www.ijo.in/article.asp?issn=0... ;aulast=Gupta

--
Bobby G.