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Re: PVC for Compressed Air

To: shop-talk@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: PVC for Compressed Air
From: BBRANDT@TCMAIL.FRCO.COM
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 1996 15:49:04 -0600
     Snip
     >This data was apparently from David Wallace at the Rocky Mountain 
     >Center for Occupational Safety and Health at the University of Utah.
     
     >Based on the above info, it doesn't sound like a good idea to use PVC 
     >for compressed air, although I have seen it in a lot of places.
     
     >John Giles
     
     The main issue here has to do with the stored energy from compressed 
     gasses in the event of a failure. Some friends of mine were killed 
     when a steam line failed while under pressure. They were not killed by 
     the steam but by the explosive release of the steam. They found one of 
     them 150 feet away from the site of the rupture hanging from a 4th 
     story rafter in the building. He had been on the first floor. The 
     force of the release threw an 12" diameter steel pipe elbow through an 
     18" structural beam and 100 yards out side the building. Obviously an 
     extreme example but imagine having your air header fail and having to 
     have the emrgency room doctor spend hours picking plastif out of your 
     hide. The ASME went to water pressure testing of coded vessles and 
     piping because if there is a leak or a break the energy is dissipated 
     without imparting momentum to the container. 
     
     Just my $.02
     
     Bruce Brandt
     bbrandt@tcmail.frco.com

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