Old Weather Forum
Shore Leave => Dockside Cafe => Topic started by: Craig on 09 June 2012, 06:42:19
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The HMS Edinburgh Castle log indicates a concern about the heating
of the coal.
http://s3.amazonaws.com/oldweather/ADM53-40573/ADM%2053-40573-010_0.jpg
7:30 AM.
They have been monitoring this for some time and now
they decided to move some of it. Has anyone heard about this problem
before?
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Interesting - not come across this before.
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I found this:
"Spontaneous combustion has long been
recognized as a fire hazard in stored coal. Spontaneous combustion
fires usually begin as "hot spots" deep within the reserve of coal. The
hot spots appear when coal absorbs oxygenfrom the air. Heat
generated by the oxidation then initiated the fire".
http://www.saftek.net/worksafe/bull94.txt
Perhaps it happens all the time on ships and other log keepers don't think it's worth mentioning.
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The Laurentic had a fire in the coal store, I think, which resulted
in one person dying due to a beam falling on his head. I'll try and
track down the logs.
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Here you go:
http://oldweather.s3.amazonaws.com/ADM_53-46298/ADM%2053-46298-003_1.jpg
http://oldweather.s3.amazonaws.com/ADM_53-46298/ADM%2053-46298-005_0.jpg
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I note that the temperature was in the 50s in this case. It was in the mid 70s when the Edinburgh Castle had this problem.
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They must have feared the coal igniting because they spent the next few days dousing it with fire hoses
Here are the next few logs:-
http://s3.amazonaws.com/oldweather/ADM53-40573/ADM%2053-40573-010_1.jpg
http://s3.amazonaws.com/oldweather/ADM53-40573/ADM%2053-40573-011_0.jpg
http://s3.amazonaws.com/oldweather/ADM53-40573/ADM%2053-40573-011_1.jpg
http://s3.amazonaws.com/oldweather/ADM53-40573/ADM%2053-40573-012_0.jpg
http://s3.amazonaws.com/oldweather/ADM53-40573/ADM%2053-40573-012_1.jpg
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I seem to remember an entry on one of my ships about flooding the coal bunker.
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I know from working with grinding equipment in factories that many
materials that lay folk consider inert is in fact very explosive -
aluminum is one, cotton is another. The time I worked in a plant
making all kinds of felt, they simply refused to use cotton at all
because the dust-danger went from nuisance to extreme when it was added
to the mix. And every time we ground aluminum in a different
plant, there was mandatory careful sweeping/cleaning the area
afterwards. Being a dust lets it react with oxygen very
freely. And I don't mean it starts fires in dusty corners; I mean
it makes an explosive fireball.
I'm not at all surprised that coal is in the same category, and a bit surprised if all they got was a smoldering fire.
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Flour explodes rather spectacularly too, if you let it. Mills back
in the day could only work in daylight, because you couldn't have
candles or lanterns anywhere near a mill.
Custard too...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZXiJ3p1R4o&feature=related
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Ava faints dead away - abuse of custard powder - oh dear oh dear.... :'( ( ;))
(I
understand that the latest theory on the great fire of London is that
it started from a flour explosion at the baker's on Pudding Lane.)
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Sawdust and also Creamer (the powder stuff you put in drinks instead of milk) also make great effects.
http://hackedgadgets.com/2008/10/12/sawdust-cannon-proven-by-mythbusters/
(http://hackedgadgets.com/2008/10/12/sawdust-cannon-proven-by-mythbusters/)
Grain silos in Australia occasionally catch fire.
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/residents-evacuated-as-fire-blazes-at-wallaroo-grain-silo/story-e6frea83-1226278987558
(http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/residents-evacuated-as-fire-blazes-at-wallaroo-grain-silo/story-e6frea83-1226278987558)
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We are going to get in so much lumber on the family pc front :-[
Can I change the conversation to something safe ..erm ...erm ... ok - 'my first boating experience'.
I'll
start....at a boating lake with my Chief Petty Office father..I got my
socks wet falling out of the boat as we came into shore ;D (got
told off and taken home (and our boating experiences from then on went
downhill...))
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Are you saying most parents don't like to have their offspring blow up the kitchen, even more than using blue language? ;D
Maybe
we should modify the presence of links for these examples - not the
content as yet, at least as long as it doesn't get more graphic.
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;D ;D ;D ;D agreed!
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OK will do.
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Hey! Kids! Don't explode stuff! Not even custard! Your mum likes you the way you are, eyebrows and all.
;D
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Yesterday I'd never seen anything like this today one of Gloucestershire's convoy reported 'Bunker on fire'!
http://s3.amazonaws.com/oldweather/ADM53-43108/ADM%2053-43108-013_1.jpg,
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I don't understand why, with this problem being so likely, that
there is no heat drawing system set up for the bunkers. ???
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I guess water is the best heat drawing system but they probably don't want to be wetting the coal unnecessarily.
I
wonder if the rolling of ship due to high seas would be part of the
cause of the coal warming? In this case the sea is pretty heavy.
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Well I was thinking more of a sort of central heating system to take
the heat away rather than dowsing...still coal moutains in Wales didn't
spontaneously combust - or did they? Perhaps it is the problem of
friction in a heavy sea. Odd.
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I googled, hoping to get something about designing bunkers to
minimize fire. I got a very interesting forum discussion among
knowledgable engineers. Sometimes googling gets very lucky. ;D
http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/antique-machinery-history/bunker-fires-coal-fired-ships-112802/
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It is an interesting discussion, Janet. I wonder if spontaneous coal
fires are as common on land as at sea? I would guess the constant
movement of a ship would cause friction between the lumps of coal and it
could create more coal dust, which then oxidizes. The article says that
dead air zones in the bunker are a contributing factor. In the
Edinburgh Castle case they moved some of the coal from the main bunker.
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Golly - I just read that info Janet. I didn't realise that
coal is actively packed and sorted and treated at power stations and the
like. And the article about the Titanic was particularly
interesting. Thanks for that.
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Interestingly enough the Columbella has just loaded a huge amount of
coal (over 2k tons) - using 58 men and 3 f'men (firemen)
http://s3.amazonaws.com/oldweather/ADM53-38278/ADM%2053-38278-112_0.jpg
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I remember a couple of fairly hefty explosions in malt transfer
conveyors at one brewery I worked at. A nut or something, in with the
malt got into the mill, sparked and set off dust explosions. All the
conveyors had dust explosion covers, that blew open, so that no damage
was done, but they were quite spectacular, with flames shooting out of
the explosion covers, and quite a loud bang. K
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I have some info on the subject:
The Dreadnought HMS Vanguard
which was lost do to a magazine explosion the night of 9 July 1917 also
had a fire in her coal bunker pre WW I as did her two sister ships the
St Vincent and Collingwood. Note: the future King George VI served on
the latter ship. I have wondered if their could have been a fire or
explosion in a nearby coal bunker could have detonated a nearby magazine
or was it just a case of unstable cordite. Also note only 2 of the crew
survived.
Then there in the monitor HMS Glatton lost do to a
magazine explosion on 16 September 1918. it seems the boiler room
crewmen piled ash and clinker from the boilers next to a bulkhead that
had a 6 in ammo magazine on the other side!?
The book "MY Mystrey
Ships" by Gordon Campbell, which is on the net somewhere, has in it
where everytime his ship arrived in a major port he had an officer on
his ship go and check this cordite lot numbers. If any of it on his ship
was too old it was removed .
I believe the Battleship USS
Maine that was sunk do a magazine explosion in havana harbor. The event
that started the Spanish-American war . This may have been caused by a
fire or explosion in a nearby coal bunker.
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I know that is true about the USS Maine. The did a TV
documentary some time ago, having gotten permission to send divers or
remotes down to investigate the wreck. They showed that all the
metal warping from the explosion bent out showing internal pushing
rather than in showing a foreign object strike.
Coal and its dust and byproducts simply is not safe.
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Thanks JJ I was a little grabbled on my posting on the USS Maine it did sink do a magazine explosion
As
for the HMS Glatton explosion in examining her sister ship HMS Gorgon
the wood lining from the magazine bulkhead next to the boiler room and
found 3 scorch marks on the paint, newspapers and a 1/2 inch hole!?
Also the RMS Titanic had a smoldering fire in one of her coal bunkers when she set sail on her one and only voyage