Since my post earlier this week I have received several comments and questions as to whether this “explosion” was in fact a Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion. So I took the video and did a frame-by-frame examination of the event and I can say without question this was a classic BLEVE event. As we can see in this pic, we see the large and rapid expansion of vapor immediately upon failure of the pressure vessel and several frames later we have full ignition of this cloud.
SAFTENG members can log in to see the full frame-by-frame breakdown of the video as the BLEVE occurred:
| Pic #1 showing the Relief Valve venting on the 1,000-gallon LPG storage tank | Pic #2 showing the first moment when the vessel is failing and the vapor is expanding |
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| Pic #3 showing the full escape of the superheated boiling liquid to all vapor in the atmosphere | Pic #4 showing the vapor cloud expanding and lessening in concentration and where it has fallen back into its flammable range we see ignition occurring |
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| Pic #5 showing the full ignition of the expanding vapor cloud. Take note of the human standing by the building in the lower right of the image. | Pic #6 showing the explosion expanding quickly and now we can better see the two (2) humans standing way too close to such an event!! |
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