PYF Dangerous Chemistry: Fluorine protecting Its Modesty...

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iospace: Jan 19, 2038

A ClF₃ fire is basically "we're hosed" depending on the scale and how much of it is available.

# ? Feb 6, 2018 19:31

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# ? Jun 8, 2024 23:21

Epsilon Moonshade: Nov 22, 2016; Not an excellent host.

Syd Midnight posted:

"For dealing with this situation, I have always recommended a good pair of running shoes." - Ignition 6:3

If you're going to quote that, you need to just quote the whole paragraph:

Ignition posted:

�It is, of course, extremely toxic, but that�s the least of the problem. It is hypergolic with every known fuel, and so rapidly hypergolic that no ignition delay has ever been measured. It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers, not to mention asbestos, sand, and water-with which it reacts explosively. It can be kept in some of the ordinary structural metals-steel, copper, aluminium, etc.-because of the formation of a thin film of insoluble metal fluoride which protects the bulk of the metal, just as the invisible coat of oxide on aluminium keeps it from burning up in the atmosphere. If, however, this coat is melted or scrubbed off, and has no chance to reform, the operator is confronted with the problem of coping with a metal-fluorine fire. For dealing with this situation, I have always recommended a good pair of running shoes.�

# ? Feb 6, 2018 19:44

mycomancy: Oct 16, 2016

iospace posted:

A ClF₃ fire is basically "we're hosed" depending on the scale and how much of it is available.

Yeah, there's not really any stopping that shitshow any more than stopping a tornado by setting up box fans. Just get the gently caress outta there and survive with a good story.

# ? Feb 6, 2018 19:45

Icon Of Sin: Dec 26, 2008

quote:

It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers

I have a morbid curiosity about the report that this incident had to have generated. 3 bored F atoms per molecule sounds like a good way to get your skeleton scavenged while you're still using it.

# ? Feb 6, 2018 19:46

Sagebrush: Feb 26, 2012; ERM... Actually I have stellar scores on the surveys, and every year students tell me that my classes are the best ones they’ve ever taken.

I don't think there was necessarily an incident related to that phrase. As you read Ignition! you get the sense that the author is an incredibly cynical misanthrope, the sort of person who likes to ruin dinner by telling stories about the time he saw someone get their arm stuck in a tractor PTO. Maybe that's a natural result of working with rocket fuels for decades, I don't know.

Anyway it reads like that was written for shock value, not because he once saw a test engineer consumed by it, though I'm sure someone somewhere has sometime spilled some on themselves with awful results.

# ? Feb 6, 2018 19:58

Phy: Jun 27, 2008; Fun Shoe

It's possible someone may have tested its hyperbolic properties with meat, which nearly all test engineers are composed of.

# ? Feb 6, 2018 20:13

IronClaymore: Jun 30, 2010; by Athanatos

Sagebrush posted:

I don't think there was necessarily an incident related to that phrase. As you read Ignition! you get the sense that the author is an incredibly cynical misanthrope, the sort of person who likes to ruin dinner by telling stories about the time he saw someone get their arm stuck in a tractor PTO. Maybe that's a natural result of working with rocket fuels for decades, I don't know.

Anyway it reads like that was written for shock value, not because he once saw a test engineer consumed by it, though I'm sure someone somewhere has sometime spilled some on themselves with awful results.

I always thought of him as a...well I don't know what I'd classify him as. But not as that. With that many near misses, maybe a sort of wry humour is appropriate. He is the exact sort of person I'd invite to a dinner party though.

Also, I like that the standard informal textbook for chemical risks and accidents was still written half a century ago. Even before ridiculously dangerous propellants got Apollo 11 to the Moon. We're still doing new things with chemistry, but some things are just fundamental.

# ? Feb 6, 2018 20:20

Sagebrush: Feb 26, 2012; ERM... Actually I have stellar scores on the surveys, and every year students tell me that my classes are the best ones they’ve ever taken.

Compared to the stuff described in Ignition!, the liquid oxygen and kerosene that got Apollo 11 to the Moon is a breezy summer day.

# ? Feb 6, 2018 20:25

Epsilon Moonshade: Nov 22, 2016; Not an excellent host.

Icon Of Sin posted:

I have a morbid curiosity about the report that this incident had to have generated. 3 bored F atoms per molecule sounds like a good way to get your skeleton scavenged while you're still using it.

Sagebrush posted:

I don't think there was necessarily an incident related to that phrase. As you read Ignition! you get the sense that the author is an incredibly cynical misanthrope, the sort of person who likes to ruin dinner by telling stories about the time he saw someone get their arm stuck in a tractor PTO. Maybe that's a natural result of working with rocket fuels for decades, I don't know.

Anyway it reads like that was written for shock value, not because he once saw a test engineer consumed by it, though I'm sure someone somewhere has sometime spilled some on themselves with awful results.

My take on Ignition! (which I've read multiple times) is that it's meant to be a humor book as much as a sneakily educational/autobiographical/historical one. It succeeds IMO, but I'd take the details of some of the incidents with a grain of salt. :v:

# ? Feb 6, 2018 21:18

Marcade: Jun 11, 2006; Who are you to glizzy gobble El Vago's marshmussy?

Salt? Have you any idea what some of the things mentioned in that book would do if exposed to salt? :kingsley:

# ? Feb 6, 2018 21:34

Icon Of Sin: Dec 26, 2008

Speaking of utter insanity and rockets, Falcon Heavy launches in like 2 min.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KSr1RBsB4s

# ? Feb 6, 2018 21:43

Proteus Jones: Feb 28, 2013

Icon Of Sin posted:

Speaking of utter insanity and rockets, Falcon Heavy launches in like 2 min.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KSr1RBsB4s

Is it wrong that poo poo like this makes me tear up?

# ? Feb 7, 2018 00:15

Arglebargle III: Feb 21, 2006

Makes you tear up your drone ship by crashing a rocket into it at 300 miles per hour maybe.

# ? Feb 7, 2018 01:21

Johnny Aztec: Jan 30, 2005; by Hand Knit

Thank you for your service, Arglebargle III.

# ? Feb 7, 2018 02:57

Patrick Spens: Jul 21, 2006; "Every quarterback says they've got guts, But how many have actually seen 'em?"; Pillbug

Proteus Jones posted:

Is it wrong that poo poo like this makes me tear up?

It's cool, but tearing up seems like a little much.

# ? Feb 7, 2018 04:30

Proteus Jones: Feb 28, 2013

Patrick Spens posted:

It's cool, but tearing up seems like a little much.

Maybe it�s the result of a long day, but after seeing the slow decline in the 80s and 90s of interest in space exploration, seeing a truly exciting (and fun given the payload orbiting Earth right now) revitalization of space rocket man stuff makes me feel like I�m 10 and that we�re on the verge of doing truly wondrous things. Plus those vertical landings are right out of 50s sci-fi. Yeah 2/3 made it back, but still cool.

I know that�s probably hopelessly optimistic, but drat if poo poo like today�s launch doesn�t create a new excitement for space exploration with the aim of going further than moon for manned missions.

Proteus Jones has a new favorite as of 05:05 on Feb 7, 2018

# ? Feb 7, 2018 05:02

Memento: Aug 25, 2009; Bleak Gremlin

Proteus Jones posted:

the payload orbiting Earth right now

It's orbiting a hell of a lot more than that my friend

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/961083704230674438

# ? Feb 7, 2018 05:43

Icon Of Sin: Dec 26, 2008

Proteus Jones posted:

Is it wrong that poo poo like this makes me tear up?

Not at all :unsmith:

# ? Feb 7, 2018 05:44

Proteus Jones: Feb 28, 2013

Memento posted:

It's orbiting a hell of a lot more than that my friend

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/961083704230674438

Yeah, I just read the Ars Technica breakdown of today. That poo poo is so cool.

# ? Feb 7, 2018 06:00

Memento: Aug 25, 2009; Bleak Gremlin

Proteus Jones posted:

Yeah, I just read the Ars Technica breakdown of today. That poo poo is so cool.

Hell yes it is

# ? Feb 7, 2018 06:10

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

Am I allowed to throw out a plug for Mike Mullane's Riding Rockets since we are talking about space stuff? It's really good

# ? Feb 7, 2018 08:24

Groda: Mar 17, 2005; Hair Elf

Proteus Jones posted:

Yeah, I just read the Ars Technica breakdown of today. That poo poo is so cool.

link?

# ? Feb 7, 2018 09:35

Syd Midnight: Sep 23, 2005

Slavic Crime Yacht posted:

Am I allowed to throw out a plug for Mike Mullane's Riding Rockets since we are talking about space stuff? It's really good

Sorry for the wall of text, but in the book he describes what he believes happened aboard the Challenger post-disaster, based on forensic evidence and his experience as a shuttle pilot, that's one of the the most emotionally powerful things I've ever read on space travel. If a rocket launch makes you tear up then so will this, but not in a good way. Especially knowing that he was close friends with most of them, so his depiction is vivid because it probably played in his head every day for the rest of his life.

quote:

�Challenger, you�re go at throttle up.�

Scobee answered, �Roger, Houston. Go at throttle up.�

Mike Smith watched the power tapes climb toward 104 percent. Even as he was doing so, the stack was disintegrating

The leaking fire had weakened the bottom SRB attachment strut. The right-side booster snapped free, rupturing the ET. Tons of propellant poured from the gas tank. The left-side booster ripped from its struts and joined the right-side SRB in chaotic, unguided flight. Challenger's fuselage and wings were broken into multiple parts. The cockpit was torn from its mounts.

At the instant of vehicle breakup the crew was whipsawed under their seat harnesses. Checklists were snatched from their Velcro tabs and jerked on their tethers. Pencils and drink containers separated from their tabs and were hurled through the volume. The noise of debris crashing into the outside of the cockpit added to the chaos. Exclamations of surprise came from some of the crew�s throats, but fell dead in their microphones. All electrical power had been lost at the separation of the cockpit from the rest of the fuselage.

The mayhem of breakup lasted only a moment before the equally startling calm of free fall began. While the cockpit and the other debris were still moving upward at 1,000 miles per hour, they were freely under the slowing influence of gravity. Like human cannonballs, the crew had experienced a momentary violence, followed immediately by the silence of gravity�s grip. They floated under their harnesses. Pencils and pens spun in the air around them. Checklists floated on their tethers.

The crew was alive but suffocating. They turned on their emergency air packs. Judy or El switched on Mike Smith�s PEAP.

Scobee and Smith were test pilots and reacted as they had been trained. Even the brief, wild ride through breakup would not have mentally incapacitated them. They had faced countless serious emergencies in their flying careers. They knew the situation was perilous, but they were in a cockpit with a control stick and there was a runway only twenty miles away. They believed they had a chance.

They snapped their attention to the instruments hoping to identify the problem, but the cockpit was electrically dead. Every computer screen was a black hole. Every caution and warning light was off. There were no warbling emergency tones. Every �talk back� indicator showed �barber pole� - its unpowered indication. The attitude indicator, the velocity, acceleration, and altitude tapes were frozen with OFF flags in view. They had nothing to work with. As they attempted to make sense of the situation, Scobee�s hand was never off the stick. He fought for vehicle control, oblivious to the fact there was no longer a vehicle to control.

�Houston, Challenger?� He and Mike Smith made repeated calls to MCC, but those were into a lifeless radio.

With no instrument response and an apparently dead stick, Scobee and Smith mashed down on their stick �pickle buttons� to engage the backup flight system. It was the emergency procedure for an out-of-control situation. If the problem was due to a primary flight system computer failure or software error, the BFS computer would jump online and bring life back to the cockpit. Again and again their right thumbs jammed downward on the spring-loaded red buttons. Again and again they searched the instruments hoping to see life in them, hoping to have something, anything, to work with. But Challenger was now a blossoming cloud of debris. No switch was going to put her back together.

Very quickly the crew realized the futility of their actions. The upstairs crewmembers - Dick, Mike, El, and Judy - had window views of the disaster in which they were immersed. As the tumbling cockpit moved ever higher those views became more synoptic. They looked downward to see the white-orange cloud marking the place of Challenger's death. They saw the billowing trails of the disconnected SRBs.

The downstairs crewmembers - Ron McNair, Christa McAuliffe, and Greg Jarvis - were locked in the most horrifying of circumstances. They had no windows, no instruments. They were totally dependent upon the upstairs crewmembers to keep them informed on the progress of the flight. But no words came. At the instant of breakup the intercom went dead and the mid-deck lights went out. They were trapped in a tumbling, darkened, silent room.

As the cockpit arced across its apogee, the upstairs crew saw the sky turn space-black, Challenger's lost goal. The silence was nearly total, just the merest whisper of wind. Then, the two-minute fall to the sea began. The rippled blue of the Atlantic filled the windows. The noise of the wind rose to a loud rush as the cockpit quickly reached a terminal velocity of nearly 250 miles per hour. The upstairs crew watched the finer details of the sea become visible: rumpled wind-blown areas, the froth of whitecaps, and brighter splashes marking the impact of other pieces of their machine. The horizon rose higher and higher in their windows, the blue reaching toward them until� blessed oblivion.

It was a big mystery at the time, but knowing what probably happened kinda makes me wish I didn't.

# ? Feb 7, 2018 10:50

Ola: Jul 19, 2004

Syd Midnight posted:

Sorry for the wall of text, but in the book he describes what he believes happened aboard the Challenger post-disaster, based on forensic evidence and his experience as a shuttle pilot, that's one of the the most emotionally powerful things I've ever read on space travel. If a rocket launch makes you tear up then so will this, but not in a good way. Especially knowing that he was close friends with most of them, so his depiction is vivid because it probably played in his head every day for the rest of his life.

It was a big mystery at the time, but knowing what probably happened kinda makes me wish I didn't.

That was very well written and possibly true. But I think it's probably a less gruesome fate than many thousands of airline passengers have experienced, who didn't have the benefit of a pressure suit and professional insight and forethought.

# ? Feb 7, 2018 12:21

DigitalRaven: Oct 9, 2012

Syd Midnight posted:

"For dealing with this situation, I have always recommended a good pair of running shoes." - Ignition 6:3

I hadn't thought to do it before, but treating Ignition! as the holy text of this thread is very suitable.

# ? Feb 7, 2018 12:42

Proteus Jones: Feb 28, 2013

Groda posted:

link?

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/02/this-may-be-the-moment-spacex-opened-the-cosmos-to-the-masses/

# ? Feb 7, 2018 14:28

Samizdata: May 14, 2007

Just a quick "keyboard meets acetone" time-lapse video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LusMOtGwTrA

# ? Feb 7, 2018 21:13

Carbon dioxide: Oct 9, 2012

Ola posted:

That was very well written and possibly true. But I think it's probably a less gruesome fate than many thousands of airline passengers have experienced, who didn't have the benefit of a pressure suit and professional insight and forethought.

There must've been people who survived the initial blast on board MH17...

# ? Feb 7, 2018 21:18

Memento: Aug 25, 2009; Bleak Gremlin

Carbon dioxide posted:

There must've been people who survived the initial blast on board MH17...

A Buk launcher has a 70kg warhead, which is a hell of a lot of boom, but they work on proximity, not direct hits. So it would have shredded half the airframe and the engine on that side, but probably the majority of the passengers and crew survived the first blast.

Which hardly bears thinking about :smith:

# ? Feb 7, 2018 23:58

Wasabi the J: Jan 23, 2008; MOM WAS RIGHT

Memento posted:

A Buk launcher has a 70kg warhead, which is a hell of a lot of boom, but they work on proximity, not direct hits. So it would have shredded half the airframe and the engine on that side, but probably the majority of the passengers and crew survived the first blast.

Which hardly bears thinking about

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krvDZiQ5oqw

# ? Feb 8, 2018 00:19

Zamujasa: Oct 27, 2010; Bread Liar

I made this for the OSHA thread but I figured y'all would appreciate it over here.

# ? Feb 8, 2018 20:53

Icon Of Sin: Dec 26, 2008

Zamujasa posted:

I made this for the OSHA thread but I figured y'all would appreciate it over here.

Explosive ratings! :suicide:

# ? Feb 8, 2018 20:55

Sagebrush: Feb 26, 2012; ERM... Actually I have stellar scores on the surveys, and every year students tell me that my classes are the best ones they’ve ever taken.

it is now available as : nfpa :

:nfpa:

# ? Feb 8, 2018 21:02

Queen_Combat: Jan 15, 2011

Zamujasa posted:

I made this for the OSHA thread but I figured y'all would appreciate it over here.

I'm glad it got fixed for the : nfpa : purchase.

Just so you know, there's a glitch with the basic .gif standard that, if you make a gif with frames spaced out at 100ms, most browsers and gif players time them to 10ms. You ever see a gif and then download it or use hoverzoom/imagus and it plays SUPER fast? That's why. It's a problem with the gif standard. Looks like it's okay on the forum itself, but just an FYI.

It's a great gif though :kimchi:

# ? Feb 8, 2018 21:29

wolrah: May 8, 2006; what?

Metal Geir Skogul posted:

I'm glad it got fixed for the : nfpa : purchase.

Just so you know, there's a glitch with the basic .gif standard that, if you make a gif with frames spaced out at 100ms, most browsers and gif players time them to 10ms. You ever see a gif and then download it or use hoverzoom/imagus and it plays SUPER fast? That's why. It's a problem with the gif standard. Looks like it's okay on the forum itself, but just an FYI.

It's a great gif though

You mixed up the bug a bit.

The standard is actually fine, but some early GIF creation tools incorrectly set extremely low frame durations (typically either 0 or 10 ms) when they want 100ms. A former IE team member attributes this to early versions of Netscape not being able to render a frame in less than 100ms on most computers of its day (https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/ieinternals/2010/06/07/trivia-animated-gif-timing/). The browsers implement a lower limit on the frame time setting and default anything below that to 100ms, or 10 FPS. Mozilla used to have the floor at 100ms. IE had it at 60ms according to that blog post.

It seems like at this point all the major browsers have converged on treating 0 and 10 ms as 100ms, 20ms and above are taken as specified.

# ? Feb 8, 2018 23:47

funmanguy: Apr 20, 2006; What time is it?

I work in a repurposed WW1 army barracks with some bricks slapped on the side and everyone is terrified to drink the water. Is there some way that I can test it? Reading the EPA website gives me the suitable range of things that could be in the water, but they direct me to another site that wants lots of money just to view the documentation for testing.

I am dumb, is there a way a dumb person like me can do this?

# ? Feb 9, 2018 00:19

Queen_Combat: Jan 15, 2011

wolrah posted:

You mixed up the bug a bit.

The standard is actually fine, but some early GIF creation tools incorrectly set extremely low frame durations (typically either 0 or 10 ms) when they want 100ms. A former IE team member attributes this to early versions of Netscape not being able to render a frame in less than 100ms on most computers of its day (https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/ieinternals/2010/06/07/trivia-animated-gif-timing/). The browsers implement a lower limit on the frame time setting and default anything below that to 100ms, or 10 FPS. Mozilla used to have the floor at 100ms. IE had it at 60ms according to that blog post.

It seems like at this point all the major browsers have converged on treating 0 and 10 ms as 100ms, 20ms and above are taken as specified.

poo poo, was explained to me wrong. My bad.

I still see the "super fast gif" bug, though. Like with his gif posted, not the actual :nfpa : tag, plays properly when viewing in the browser. However, when I hover over the image and use Imagus (chrome extension), it plays SUPER fast. The same thing happens if I download the gif to my dropbox and open it on my phone's internal gallery, it plays SUPER fast. I notice this with a lot of older gifs, especially when browsing sites like tumblr or 4chan and saving those for later viewing. Even irfanview 64-bit shows the nfpa gif playing really quickly.

# ? Feb 9, 2018 00:23

Trauma Dog 3000: Aug 30, 2017; by SA Support Robot

Icon Of Sin posted:

Explosive ratings!

2/10, would not bang

# ? Feb 9, 2018 01:11

Arglebargle III: Feb 21, 2006

funmanguy posted:

I work in a repurposed WW1 army barracks with some bricks slapped on the side and everyone is terrified to drink the water. Is there some way that I can test it? Reading the EPA website gives me the suitable range of things that could be in the water, but they direct me to another site that wants lots of money just to view the documentation for testing.

I am dumb, is there a way a dumb person like me can do this?

Uh how much access to lab equipment do you have?

If you're concerned about your health you want to send it off to a commercial lab. I googled test packages and they're pretty reasonable, between $100 and $200.

# ? Feb 9, 2018 01:31

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# ? Jun 8, 2024 23:21

funmanguy: Apr 20, 2006; What time is it?

Arglebargle III posted:

Uh how much access to lab equipment do you have?

If you're concerned about your health you want to send it off to a commercial lab. I googled test packages and they're pretty reasonable, between $100 and $200.

im not concerned at all, i just have no evidence either way and im annoyed at the assumption that old=bad coming from most everyone else. its part of a college campus so there is a lot of lab poo poo, but not much that i could use i would imagine.

maybe i go have a chat with a chem prof

# ? Feb 9, 2018 02:05

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