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I doubt you could get it hot enough to sustain fire while being actively air cooled. And i wanna see an engine melt down :-)
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Feb 2, 2012 07:36
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Nerobro posted:I doubt you could get it hot enough to sustain fire while being actively air cooled. Easy enough to remove the fan belt, I imagine.
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Feb 2, 2012 08:58
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Fucknag posted:Easy enough to remove the fan belt, I imagine. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQhfcdQf1QA
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Feb 2, 2012 08:59
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kastein posted:I like that idea, but not sure it'll score things up badly enough. I'd suggest maybe a half teaspoon of fine sand (and doesn't gallium wet silicon dioxide/sand quite nicely?), and bypass the oil filter. Again, the sand is only going to score those steel parts that are actively moving against each other - there might be sand that gets into the valve guides I suppose but any part that takes any kind of stress is steel, or at a minimum NOT aluminum. Just having sand moving around inside the block isn't going to score anything inside that matters. If you do it from the outside (clean engine, put gallium on outside) at some point some holes will develop and coolant/oil will leak out (non-dramatically) and probably cause it to overheat before any comedy destruction can occur.
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Feb 2, 2012 15:44
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Fucknag posted:Easy enough to remove the fan belt, I imagine. It's still really hard to get a solid block of magnesium to ignite. Finely divided, sure, it'll almost ignite on its own, but when it's in big engine-block form, probably not so much. This guy did it with thermite, but if you've got thermite you've already got something that burns impressively: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkvQ-BJD2rU I'm not disputing that solid billets of magnesium can catch fire, I'm just saying that it's not easy. The ignition temperature of a big block of magnesium is about 1200 degrees (almost as high as its melting point), and it's hard to heat a small part of that block to that temperature because it's something like three or four times as thermally conductive as cast iron. So you pretty much need to get the whole damned thing really hot, which takes a while. I mean, aluminum will burn as well, but if your cooling fan fails your aluminum engine block doesn't burst into flame. At least, not generally, I'm sure someone's managed it somewhere vvvvvv Phanatic fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Feb 2, 2012 |
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Feb 2, 2012 17:46
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A couple firefighters I know have seen magnesium blocks catch fire. They said sand was pretty much the only way to put them out, either that or just sit back and wait.
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Feb 2, 2012 19:38
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 Hey guys, we've got this material that is nearly impossible to put out once ignited. What shall we do with it? Let's build propane grills with it!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bp4ucQCjNvU Annnd, the ensuing recall. What the gently caress, Lowe's? How something like this made it all the way from concept to actual product for sale to consumers without someone along the way going  and then saying "uh, hey, guys, maybe this isn't such a good idea" is just a complete mindfuck. 
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Feb 2, 2012 20:58
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Frank Dillinger posted:Better yet, raise the driven axle off the ground, and really rev the engine for maximum destruction. Best idea, do it on a dyno.
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Feb 2, 2012 21:11
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Black88GTA posted:How something like this made it all the way from concept to actual product for sale to consumers without someone along the way going
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Feb 2, 2012 21:21
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Finally I get to contribute to this thread. Monday about 10:00am the fire alarms went off, evacuating our 6 story building. There were reports of flooding down the central staircase, but no-one knew for certain. Eventually, the alarms were turned off and clean-up crews went in. I, being the computer nerd on one of the floors, slipped in along with them.  That is one of the closed-system water pipes for our server cooling system. A worker working on the third floor was running up the stairs with a 6 foot ladder and knocked the valve off one of the stubs, dumping the contents of the entire cooling system on the second floor of the building. The water ejected with enough force to blow a hole in the stairway wall opposite and collapse the ceiling. Needless to say, the workers were seen fleeing the building with all of their stuff in tow. Except a ladder, so yay, free ladder.  This is the floor outside the second floor landing in front of the elevators. That's about 3 inches of standing water.  Mecha-Tech fucked around with this message at 22:04 on Feb 2, 2012 |
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Feb 2, 2012 22:01
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Being a computer nerd too... I hope the servers weren't harmed!
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Feb 2, 2012 22:45
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Haha that is a proper slapstick failure.
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Feb 2, 2012 22:55
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That valve looks like it's held on there with paper mache.
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Feb 2, 2012 22:55
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Black88GTA posted:
I love the comments that come along with stuff like that. "We've had this grill for a year now and we've had no problems whatsoever!" Yes, well, the people whose grills burned up in hellfires had no problems with their grills either - right up until the point where they BURNED UP IN HELLFIRES. It reminds me of the home shopping clip where the guy was demonstrating a collapsible ladder in the studio when it, well, collapsed on him. The 'satisfied customer on the phone' (who was quite obviously someone on the other end of the studio) sees it all go down and says "...and THAT has never happened to ours!" Well, all is forgiven! Ordering 10 deathladders now because Mary Jo in Wisconsin says they're cool.
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Feb 2, 2012 22:56
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Mecha-Tech posted:This is the floor outside the second floor landing in front of the elevators. That's about 3 inches of standing water. Someone was testing a shut-off valve meant for a nuclear plant, for which they had to make sure it could cut off instantly even under maximum flow. Which it could. Unfortunately, the resulting shock of the entire flow being stopped absolutely dead fractured the supply pipe somewhere above, and flooded about three floors.
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Feb 2, 2012 23:03
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sigtrap posted:I love the comments that come along with stuff like that. Heh reminds me of the tv knife peddler that was wacking a katana on a bench and a chunk of it broke off and made a beeline for his sternum.
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Feb 2, 2012 23:48
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sigtrap posted:I love the comments that come along with stuff like that. Goes to show there will always be apologists for everything. The power of the human mind to convince itself it's right in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
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Feb 3, 2012 00:20
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GnarlyCharlie4u posted:That valve looks like it's held on there with paper mache. Nah, that's just the insulation. From what is labeled on the outside of the casing, it was supposed to be a 2 inch copper-lined PVC pipe. Pretty strong, as long as you don't smack it at a 45 degree angle while running up stairs. And ChrisGT, the servers are fine, as is everything else. We had the backup AC going within minutes of the break and shut down anything that wasn't important. Didn't even lose phones or internet (which is amazing, considering right beneath that picture of the elevators is the mechanical room with all the phone switches and the routers/internet connections for the whole building). The building probably needs new sheetrock on the first floor, thanks to the water soaking into it, and a metric fuckton of ceiling tiles.
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Feb 3, 2012 00:25
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GnarlyCharlie4u posted:That valve looks like it's held on there with paper mache. It's insulation wrapped in PVC. I do it for a living (usually with aluminium rather than PVC).
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Feb 3, 2012 00:28
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Mecha-Tech posted:Monday about 10:00am the fire alarms went off, evacuating our 6 story building. That just caused a flashback for me. Sometime, probably around 2002, I was working in a 15 story building (we were on the 9th floor with our small datacenter) and the fire alarms went off. Some folks got up and left immediately, I and a few others were being lazy about going downstairs because false alarms were somewhat common there. Just about the time we decided we should go it did get shut off, so we waited on everyone to come back. One of those who had left was a supervisor and he got to talking to security downstairs. Turns out a building contractor doing some remodeling on the 5th floor had knocked off a sprinkler head, thereby flooding the 5th floors on downwards, including another company's datacenter on 4. Said supervisor rode the elevators back upstairs and said they could hear the water pouring on top of the thing on the way up. Good times.
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Feb 3, 2012 18:45
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bidikyoopi posted:Goes to show there will always be apologists for everything. The power of the human mind to convince itself it's right in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. No - you're wrong.
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Feb 3, 2012 18:54
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Mecha-Tech posted:We also found out that day the under-floor moisture sensors weren't hooked up properly. Reminds me of another day when they were working on some plumbing in the back of the room. Someone turned a valve or something they weren't supposed to and sprayed the back row of cabinets. 5 or 6 got sprayed and I spent the rest of the week checking power supplies, replacing back planes and cleaning up.
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Feb 3, 2012 19:52
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JD Brickmeister posted:Not to be a wet blanket, but every video I've seen of this roughs up the aluminum with a file or something to get rid of the (invisible) oxide layer. And also aren't all the places where metal touches metal (piston sleeves, bearings, etc.) steel? Well, I was planning on tackling this from two fronts. One: Mercury has no issue whatsoever wetting Aluminum Oxide, its also cheap, which is why we're using it to stretch our gallium out. Its also liquid at STP, gallium melts in your hand, but not in that 74F engine block. GaHg amalgam stays liquid. Two: I was planning on pre-activating the amalgam prior to introduction into the test subjects. I have a bunch of 1200 mesh Aluminum powder, I'll do the maths to find the ratio, but this will "activate" it and improve the affinity it has for aluminum. As to why not just adding it to the fuel directly: It'll trash the carb/fuel system long before the engine gives out. kastein posted:I like that idea, but not sure it'll score things up badly enough. I'd suggest maybe a half teaspoon of fine sand (and doesn't gallium wet silicon dioxide/sand quite nicely?), and bypass the oil filter. Yep, it'll kill the babbit like nobody's business. But we've all seen spun bearings keep on ticking. GnarlyCharlie4u posted:Leftovers get scrapped and no one is the wiser. Yep. Get some empty drums, and vitirfy it with concrete. bidikyoopi posted:Sounds pretty cool but I'm betting if you put 30g of amalgam in the head/sump and let it sit for 30 minutes, it just won't turn over. as soon as one crank bearing seizes you're done and then it's an expensive timelapse. I say turn the engine on, let it idle, and then add the amalgam to the breather vent and record from there. Heh, seize? They'll spin free of their mounts. Everything being coated in oil is gonna slow the initial foothold down. Raluek posted:Seems like adding some to the water jacket might have some pretty good effects, not just the oil. Wouldn't have to worry about the filter that way too. Would have to write off whatever radiator you use, but I think that's a concern no matter what you do. Well, ever tried to flush mercury? It doesn't. It'll just sink to the bottom and eat what it finds. We may NEED the radiator to function during the extended tests. It would also chew up all the brass before the block bites the dust. kastein posted:by leftovers you mean a pile of mush and rotten metal you could break with your fingers, from the sound of it... Yeah, this stuff would need to go through some place like INMetCo to be processed back to usable poo poo... Otherwise we'd have something like this on our hands: "December 6, 1983 – Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, A local resident salvaged materials from a discarded radiation therapy machine carrying 6,000 pellets of 60Co. The dismantling and transport of the material led to severe contamination of his truck; when the truck was scrapped, it in turn contaminated another 5,000 metric tonnes of steel with an estimated 300 Ci (11 TBq) of activity. This material was sold for kitchen or restaurant table legs and building materials, some of which was sent to the U.S. and Canada; the incident was discovered when a truck delivering contaminated building materials months later to the Los Alamos National Laboratory accidentally drove through a radiation monitoring station. Contamination was later measured on the roads that were used to transport the original damaged radiation source. In some cases pellets were actually found embedded in the roadway. In the state of Sinaloa, 109 houses were condemned due to contaminated building material. This incident prompted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Customs Service to install radiation detection equipment at all major border crossings.[21]" From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civilian_radiation_accidents kastein posted:I like that idea, but not sure it'll score things up badly enough. I'd suggest maybe a half teaspoon of fine sand (and doesn't gallium wet silicon dioxide/sand quite nicely?), and bypass the oil filter. Good possibility, I was also thinking a few tablespoons of hydrochloric acid to etch the Aluminium too. Not sure yet. Have to hit the books on this one. Nerobro posted:Well... How about a mostly fenced in back yard. On the side of a rail line. That has already had gallons of oil poured in it? Where in the US do you live, for my own reference? (Hazmat shipping, possible personal attendance, etc.) Nobody has piped in with the Sulfur yet... We're looking for something like this: http://www.dudadiesel.com/choose_item.php?id=sulfbags 150lbs to be safe. Start checking if your place of employment uses it. 
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Feb 3, 2012 23:36
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or do the whole experiment in an oxygen free environment) If the test works, scour the inside of the engine with a wire brush before assembling it. Otherwise like the other example, you've got a really boring time-lapse on your hands.
and I assume unless they manage to purify the gallium back out of the aluminum while recycling it, everything that gets made from that melt will be structurally worthless too? I'd hate to be the recipient of that kind of mechanical failure. I really want to see this happen, I just don't want to be the poor bastard who buys an engine block made with what's left of this one.
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I live just west of chicago. So, access is easy. 10 minutes from o-hare. :-) Hydrocloric acid should happily etch the aluminum. That would definitely get things going. I worry that we'll eat through a piston before we get a hole in the block. Test subjects... Now we just need some class d personnel.
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Feb 3, 2012 23:40
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Nerobro posted:I live just west of chicago. So, access is easy. 10 minutes from o-hare. :-) Any steel crowned engines come to mind?
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Feb 3, 2012 23:43
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Sponge! posted:
Not really. Cobalt-60 has a specific activity of 1.1E3 curies/gram. So that was 5,000 metric tons contaminated by a *quarter of a gram* of Cobalt-60, which is a concentration of .05 parts per *billion*. Mercury's bad, but it's nowhere *near* that bad; the EPA's concentration limit for mercury in drinking water is 2 parts per billion.
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Feb 3, 2012 23:46
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Phanatic posted:Not really. Oh I know, I'm just saying that it doesn't take much X to gently caress up a whole lot of finished product.
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Feb 3, 2012 23:47
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Nerobro posted:we're starting to develop what could be a metal pill.. you drop in the oil filler and wait 3 hrs for a dead motor. .... this is evil. What were they putting in engines to kill them for the clunker program? I remember a segment on NPR that demonstrated the procedure and it seized the motor up in under two minutes.
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Feb 4, 2012 00:30
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PainterofCrap posted:What were they putting in engines to kill them for the clunker program? I remember a segment on NPR that demonstrated the procedure and it seized the motor up in under two minutes. sodium silicate (hydrated) turns to shards of glass.
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Feb 4, 2012 00:49
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Sponge! posted:Nobody has piped in with the Sulfur yet... hmmm. We can only order >250lb from there it looks like. Let me see if I can find other sources that aren't quite so restrictive on order quantities. I like the idea of hydrochloric in the oil to strip off some of the oxide layer, but I think it might just emulsify (?) the oil instead.
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Feb 4, 2012 02:58
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Shine on, you crazy diamonds.
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Feb 4, 2012 09:21
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atomicthumbs posted:Shine on, you crazy diamonds. Don't you mean "glisten on you Insane amalgams?"
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Feb 4, 2012 15:01
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peepsalot posted:How about just find an old aircooled beetle magnesium block and start it on fire while the engine's running. Isn't that normal operating proceedure?
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Feb 4, 2012 18:05
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kastein posted:hmmm. We can only order >250lb from there it looks like. Let me see if I can find other sources that aren't quite so restrictive on order quantities. so much for that. What state were you thinking about doing this in? I may have a good location in NH (also near a train yard!)
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Feb 6, 2012 19:55
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Nerobro posted:I live just west of chicago. So, access is easy. 10 minutes from o-hare. :-) I live in Chicago, when this goes down drop me a line and I can bring over cameras and beer. And if this weather keeps up I'll ride the interceptor over.
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Feb 6, 2012 22:53
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Hillridge posted:so much for that. If this happens in NH, I would come on a weekend. Could try and get sis to bring her fancy rear end DSLR. I wanna see poo poo get hosed up.
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Feb 7, 2012 02:57
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Slow is Fast posted:If this happens in NH, I would come on a weekend. Could try and get sis to bring her fancy rear end DSLR. I wanna see poo poo get hosed up. I'd ride down with ya. Blowing poo poo up is fun!
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Feb 7, 2012 03:30
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Slow is Fast posted:If this happens in NH, I would come on a weekend. Could try and get sis to bring her fancy rear end DSLR. I wanna see poo poo get hosed up. I'm in MA, and have a DSLR. Cape Cod, yo.
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Feb 7, 2012 05:00
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central mass, and have a yard that's so full of engines and junk that no one would notice if one blew up...
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Feb 7, 2012 06:18
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Boston, I'm in for spectating science experiments in destruction.
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Feb 8, 2012 02:09
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