User:Leighbeach/sandbox

Mechanical Vaporization.

Mechanical vaporization is a theory written by Leigh Waldon to explain the change in behavior of normally non volatile liquids to become volatile liquids below their flash point temperature. Volatility is is the tendency of a substance to vaporize in normal atmospheric conditions. When a flammable liquid vaporizes above its flash point temperature, it presents a very easily ignited atmosphere near the fuel source. So flash point is used to describe the lowest temperature at which vapours of a volatile material will ignite.

Waldon had worked most of his career in Australia and Indonesia and started noticing that a number of large mining machine fires had occurred where the hydraulic oil had erupted into sudden and spontaneous fire after a fault had occurred. Investigations revealed that the hydraulic oil had erupted into fire like a very volatile fuel, when in fact the hydraulic oils in question had very high flash point temperatures and were not normally regarded as volatile fuels. Investigations of a number of incidents with eye witness reports revealed that these fires had the presence of oil vapor clouds before fire had erupted. Waldon determined that the presence of a flammable vapor could be caused by mechanical means rather than only chemical properties relating to atmospheric pressure and temperature. The machines in question had developed higher hydraulic pressures over the years increasing from 120 Bar to extreme pressures of 300 Bar or more. The result was that hydraulic failures in any component could result in high pressure atomized vapor clouds. When this occurs, a normally low volatility fuel can be transformed into a high volatility atomized fuel by mechanical means.