IMPORTANT Safety Information!
Comments
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I'm not sure I follow.
All I am saying is for a single bottle, the risk of a leak is not changed if it is upright, on its side or upside down.
Your main concern should be securing the load and providing adequate ventilation!
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This may answer your question. From the ADR regs
Paragraph 1.1.3.1 of the 2009 ADR states that provisions laid down in ADR do not apply to:
“The carriage of dangerous goods by private individuals where the goods in question are packaged for retail sale and are intended for their personal or domestic use or for their leisure or sporting activities provided that measures have been taken to prevent any leakage of contents in the normal conditions of carriage. When these goods are flammable liquids carried in refillable receptacles filled by, or for, a private individual, the total quantity shall not exceed 60 litres per receptacle and 240 litres per transport unit. Dangerous goods in IBC’s, large packagings or tanks are not considered to be packaged for retail sale.”
This means that dangerous goods carried by private individuals, for
example, gas cylinders for caravans or barbecues are not covered by the ADR regulations1 -
Disregarding the conditions that are thought to have led to this particular explosion, the valve and its connection point to any gas cylinder has to be the point most vulnerable to damage and leakage, either thought mechanical failure or human error. I simply think that to store or transport these cylinders in anything other than an upright orientation, with free access to and taking care that other objects can neither fall onto or collide with their valves;
Is simply ignoring ‘Best Practice’ and ‘Common Sense’
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Their isn't enough publicity about the dangers of laying a gas cylinder on its side, when doing this the gas leaks through the valve, turning the car into the cylinder
I learnt that when I was trained on oxy/acetylene, for welding, we were told treat it with respect or if it doesn't kill you going up, it will incinerate you when it comes down
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That's why there is a protective collar on all domestic propane and butane bottles, to protect the valve.
There has been no guidance given for a single domestic cylinder to be ignored!
In my car on the way home from the shop, I cannot secure the bottle upright, it is therefore safer for it to be laid on it's side and wedged into position to stop it crashing around.
Keeping the cyclinder secure and stopping it falling over is the common sense thing to do.
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For a cylinder not in use, there is no mechanism that makes it more prone to leak if it is stood up, laid down or upside down!
The pressure of the liquid and gas are identical inside the cylinder. And isolation valves act identically to stop the flow of gas or liquid.
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CJ
First you say “In my car on the way home from the shop, I cannot secure the bottle upright, it is therefore safer for it to be laid on it's side and wedged into position to stop it crashing around”.
Then you say “Keeping the cyclinder secure and stopping it falling over is the common sense thing to do”.
I am unable to make any sense of how you stop a cylinder falling over, that you have already laid on its side or how you can not secure it but wedge it into position.
There seems to be some contradictions creeping into you posts; which is very unlike you.
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Apologies if that is not clear JCB, it is certainly not a contradiction, just poor composition! My English is not great!
I cannot secure a bottle in the upright position in the boot of my car.
Bottles are inherently more unstable stood, being taller than their diameter and having a shifting liquid inside. Additionally, being cylindrical, they are more difficult to wedge in the upright position to stop the bottle from falling over and then rolling around.
For me, my safest method is to lay the cylinder on it's side already, so it cannot fall over. Then with the bottom of the bottle pushed firmly against the bulkhead/seat back, I use coats/blankets/boots to wedge the bottle securely in the corner. It cannot fall over, it cannot roll side to side, it cannot slide forwards or backwards and is therefore as secure as I can get it.
Doing this does not increase/change the risk of a leak from the bottle.
Hope this clarifies my statement.
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And just to be clear, I would then store the bottles upright and outside away from sources of heat and ignition once home.
I am simply saying that it is a fallacy that it is somehow inherently dangerous to lay a bottle on it's side if required.
There is a huge amount of stored energy in liquefied fuel gasses and in the correct quantities with air, vapouised gas can explode violently, which can result in significant damage and death.
Handling of liquified fuel gasses should not be with complacency. Please do not mistake my comments as advocating not respecting the dangers associated with liquified gas.
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It can only leak if the valve/cylinder is faulty or not been shut off correctly. in the event of either it will leak whatever it's orientation.
Acetylene cylinders are totally different. The construction is much stronger because of the much higher storage pressure and the inside is filled with a porous material that the acetylene is dissolved in to.
when I attended collage, a long time ago
, I was taught that you don't lay acetylene cylinders on their side as the gas in its liquid form will saturate the porous filling at the top and exit the cylinder as liquid.Any cylinder that has been on it's side has to be left standing upright for a given period of time before using it (can't remember how long) to allow the liquid to drain down again..
Most garages have now moved away from using them because of the risk they create in the event of a fire. Propane has been substituted now. A lot of insurance companies won't offer cover if you have them on the premises. And many business's are not allowed to use/store it under the terms of their lease.
To be honest, there is no real need to use it now either as Propane will provide the heat if you need to heat something and MIG & TIG welding which only uses an inert shielding gas is much easier and safer to use for welding.
Sorry for going off topic a bit
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If a leak is occurring, from a particular cylinder by whatever cause, the aperture at the point of leakage would be of the same dimension regardless of the orientation of the cylinder. Dependent on orientation of the cylinder the leakage will either be Liquefied or Gaseous but of very much the same magnitude by volume/time in either case.
Given that LPG per Unit/Volume expands to its Gaseous state in the atmosphere by approx. some x300. (Dependent upon: the actual pressure in the storage vessel: the ambient temp: atmospheric pressure) and that the valve and its connection point to any gas cylinder has to be the point most vulnerable to damage and leakage, either thought mechanical failure or human error and that in any other orientation other than upright is much more likely to discharge Liquid than Gas. Can it possibly be argued that in an uncontrolled environment 300 Units/Volume of Gas is only as hazardous as 1 Unit/Volume?
So I am simply saying that given the same environmental circumstances, such Cylinders laid on their side inherently present a significantly greater risk hazard than those that are Safely Secured in an upright position.
I now feel that as I have nothing further of a constructive nature to add.
I rest my case and I will be making no further contribution to this thread.
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I would partially agree JCB.
Choked flow across an orifice for a gas is at a much higher flow rate than for a liquid (I can point you to the equations in Crane or Perry's Chemical Engineering Bible). So the gas would be escaping at a much much faster flow rate.
The liquid boiling to a gas and hence the volume of gas being release in total would not be too dissimilar regardless of if it was leaking liquid or gas.
Arguably it could be a little more as spreading a pool of lpg across the floor will expose it to more temperature than if just the surface of the bottle, giving it more energy to boil off a little quicker.
However, if the bottle is leaking, the full contents of the bottle are going to vapourise and come out of the bottle, so there is no difference in the total gas present outside the bottle if you let it leak gas or emptied it onto the floor as a liquid.
As I stated previously, when storing multiple bottles, a pool of liquid is bad, as if it caught on fire, the last thing you want is a load of bottles sat on top of a pool fire, which could boil and potentially BLEVE the remaining bottles.
They present no increased hazard individual, but do have different consequences.
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It does not matter if you lay the bottle on its side or upright if its leaking, the problem on its side is that the LPG may be released as a liquid ( unlikely), it then boils and expands 270 times the volume of the liquid ( you will not see this unless in lab conditions), which in turn creates an explosive mix in the air, with a mix as little as 2% in air being explosive = big bang. IE 1 litre of liquid gas = 1500 litres of explosive mix !.....you will not see the liquid as it boils very rapidly at anything above -44c for propane and -2c for butane ( approx figures). follow club advice and always check any cylinder, even empty ones as there can still be pressure inside them,Always seal all bottles empty or not. A correct Leak detection solution should be used not washing up liquid, as would you believe its corrosive!
Another note check your flexible hose from the bottles and look at tube side where it will give a manufacture date, look for cracks etc, ideally replace every 5 years.
If in doubt leave to a professional LPG registered Engineer.
Gas Senior Lecturer at City of Glasgow College.
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Agreed, though if it is leaking unnoticed for any length of time, it really matters not if the gas is boiling off outside the bottle or inside the bottle, all the gas is going to be released regardless at just a slightly different rate.
The only reason the car exploded was the very small amount that must have leaked (only litres of gas) else it would have been too rich to explode.
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The same respect should be paid to aerosol cannisters, both full and "empty" as most are made to spray their contents by being presurised with propane. Even seemingly harmless substances have a highly flamable propellant.
I once came across a Fire Extinguisher that had a propane propellant, but unfortunately it did not survive a small discharge experiment.
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Aye, the flammability range is approx 2-10% gas in air for propane, but you never know where it is and exactly what ratio it is, LPG is a searching gas which means its molecules are smaller than air, and heavier, so it will find nooks and crannies, so somewhere in the car it will be explosive, please all take care. Thats why under the gas appliances in the caravan you have "dropholes" which releases and gas down and out to atmosphere.I litre of liquid gas will create a mighty explosion in a confined space, there are some great you tube videos on line ...
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Propane is a 3 carbon chain alkane (C3H8), having a molecular weight of 44.1 g/mol and butane a 4 carbon chain alkane (C4H10), having a molecular weight of 58.1 g/mol, I not sure I would agree that it is a smaller molecule than air, but certainly that it is more dense, propane about 1.5x the density of air.
(Air being roughly 79 mole% nitrogen with 21 mole % oxygen - with an average molecular weight 29 g/mol).
But agree with the rest!
I have been on the Spadeadam course and have felt it!
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In simple terms a bottle on its side might expel liquid gas out of the valve thus releasing a potentially explosive vapour cloud (subject to all the preceding ifs and buts and technical measurements.)
It's thus best if stored upright to avoid this and only get gas out through the valve.
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Excellent post Tiger- thank you. I find it difficult to believe people would do something like that and one would reasonably expect Cylinders NOT to leak but obviously they do from time to time. Was this a rented cylinder? Are they not checked every time they go back for recharge? Sloppy workmanship? One thing though. If a valve is leaking whilst on its side would it not be leaking regardless of position?? Gas is under pressure and would find a weakness? It kinda puts into perspective the people who have suggested to me that Safefill Cylinders are dangerous because they could fall over whilst filling or could be filled on their side- give me strength!!
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