Author Topic: Using oxygen for an air supply  (Read 8795 times)

Offline b.lindsey

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Re: Using oxygen for an air supply
« Reply #15 on: December 15, 2017, 12:42:06 AM »
Which reminds me of those oldie but goodie...

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjPxDOEdsX8" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjPxDOEdsX8</a>

Bill

Offline Brian Rupnow

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Re: Using oxygen for an air supply
« Reply #16 on: December 15, 2017, 01:42:37 AM »
My old aunt Minnie suffered badly from emphysema, and was on one of those portable oxygen rigs that have the little transparent hoses discharging just below her nose. When she was about 80 years old I decided I should go and visit my old auntie before she died. It was rather disconcerting--I sat at one end of the couch, she sat at the other. She would pull the little hoses off her face, tuck them away behind her head, and light up a cigarette. After a few good drags and a couple of hacking coughs, she would put out the cigarette and replace the oxygen tubes back under her nose. I did want to see her before she went--She was very good to me when I was a kid. I  just didn't want to go with her in a big ball of flame.

Offline wgrenning

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Re: Using oxygen for an air supply
« Reply #17 on: December 15, 2017, 01:09:28 PM »
I have spent as career working at Praxair on All sorts of related equipment including high purity high pressure Oxygen compressors.  Please believe all of the warnings you hear about oxygen.  It may not always be disastrous, but it has the potential to make a catastrophic event.  Many factors, like the concentration of flammable material exposed to the oxygen, its concentration, pressure of the gas, velocity, ect all can have an effect on the reaction.  The main thing to remember with an oxygen "fire" is its violent.  "Fire" is really the wrong word,  Once the reaction starts, the gas spontaneously detonates everything flammable near it until either the fuel ( as mentioned earlier anything made of metal, yes even stainless steel burns quite ) or the gas has been consumed.
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Think of this real world true experience.  A 10,000 HP Ingersol Rand reciprocating oxygen compressor boosts oxygen in a pipeline from 200 to 300 PSI that feeds a steel mill. A suction screen in the inlet pipeing the he compressor starts to fatigue and a fragment of it goes into the compressor.  It get between the piston and cylinder and get red hot.  This is your ignition.  Within two seconds, the compressor vanishes ( now molten metal) shooting upwards burning holes through the building at 6000 degrees F.  White hot parts of the machine and building land 300 yards away.  The 10" diameter oxygen pipe that used to feed the compressor still has pressure in it from its source and is burning backwards at a several feet a second (like a fuse) spraying mouton steel everywhere.  The whole process usually takes less than a minute, but consumes everything near it.  Pity any living thing in the vicinity.  This is not hyped up or Holywood.   This is just one example of many ( albeit in an industrial setting) real world experiences that have happened.
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Never Ever Ever us oxygen to accelerate combustion unless in a device designed to do so. Always make sure anything that can come into contact with oxygen is absolutely oil and grease free.  Any never use an oxygen source as a substitution for air.   OK off my soap box
Builder of historical models / Restorer of engines

Offline fidlstyks

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Re: Using oxygen for an air supply
« Reply #18 on: December 15, 2017, 01:41:32 PM »
Thank you for your input Wayne. I had held off on this attempt for several years because of concerns for safety. I understand now not is the purity of the oxygen causing the problem. I have used oxygen for over 40 years and never seen things burn like it did. But I never turned it up before. We run the liquid tanks with out regulators to cut 12" thick steel when scrapping. But the tanks are low pressure.
   I think theoretically a burner could be designed that would perform but with disaster so close at hand I have abandoned the idea. I believe the man who was melting his iron with it got his plans from the internet. Maybe they forgot to add the warnings.

Offline mcostello

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Re: Using oxygen for an air supply
« Reply #19 on: December 15, 2017, 06:27:39 PM »
Worked with a group of mill wrights (1 wrong) who were playing pranks. Someone took a ball baring and put it in a oxygen hose using a greasy glove. When the pranked turned the oxy on the oxy got set off and blew the torch apart in His hand. No injuries some how.

Online crueby

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Re: Using oxygen for an air supply
« Reply #20 on: December 15, 2017, 06:42:51 PM »
Worked with a group of mill wrights (1 wrong) who were playing pranks. Someone took a ball baring and put it in a oxygen hose using a greasy glove. When the pranked turned the oxy on the oxy got set off and blew the torch apart in His hand. No injuries some how.

Prank-ee:  And thats when I threw him into the furnace, your honor...  O:-)

Judge: I understand completely. You are free to go!

Offline fidlstyks

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Re: Using oxygen for an air supply
« Reply #21 on: December 16, 2017, 06:32:01 PM »
There are a few types of men I loathe, one is a quiter. So me and my trusty side kick Google who I love searched the web and came up with some new answers. First thing just so no one worries, I am not replacing my set up with pure nor liquid oxygen, which would be what I would use if I perused it. I am staying with the blower
    Just so its clear my first mistake was the way I went about it. When the furnace was about half hot, I just stuck the torch handle in the blow pipe and packed it off with a rag. I was holding it when it went boom, which was something I knew better than to do. It was the end of the day around supper time, so was not thinking.
    So back to my learning . The large steel mills use liquid oxygen. It is all in the burner and mixer . For $38 I can send off for a book that would show me what to do .
    With what I learned I opted to design a tip with a mixer. It would be  basically a large home made rose bud. Placing it in the opening where the blow pipe goes, it will burn and get very hot.
   Without a real need to continue I am going to abandon the use of it for multiple reasons. One costs, one a need to cool the tip, another that I fear I would have to constantly be cleaing the tip. That could mean using multiple tips as an exchange.
   It works but its not for me at this time.  Using propane is not as much trouble as kerosene would be. If I were going to do it,  I would buy a book of diagrams opposed to trial and error.
   Anyway that's how it ends. Back to melting the old way.

 

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