Water Tank Explosion

I will be the first to tell you that I am not the sharpest tool in the shed, But could somebody pls tell me how a 1.5 million gallon water tank explode just from somebody starting to weld on it ???

https://www.yourcentralvalley.com/news/local-news/surveillance-camera-captures-deadly-water-tank-explosion-in-lemoore/

Dave58 wrote:I will be the first to tell you that I am not the sharpest tool in the shed, But could somebody pls tell me how a 1.5 million gallon water tank explode just from somebody starting to weld on it ???

https://www.yourcentralvalley.com/news/local-news/surveillance-camera-captures-deadly-water-tank-explosion-in-lemoore/

Well, my best guess is methane gas (CH4). Methane gas is in water, but normally in coal country areas and in wells.

Methane gas is highly explosive, methane is natural gas that is used to cook and heat homes.

I worked 10 years in the PA coal mines before they started shutting down and the mines I worked in were high in methane. I knew many coal miners that died from methane explosions.

https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2013/06/theres-methane-in-your-drinking-water-so-what.html

I would have never thought about methane gas being in a water tank....

I should have paid more attention in science class in school lol

Another weird possibility is thermolysis

from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_splitting

In thermolysis, water molecules split into their atomic components hydrogen and oxygen. For example, at 2200 °C about three percent of all H2O are dissociated into various combinations of hydrogen and oxygen atoms, mostly H, H2, O, O2, and OH. Other reaction products like H2O2 or HO2 remain minor. At the very high temperature of 3000 °C more than half of the water molecules are decomposed, but at ambient temperatures only one molecule in 100 trillion dissociates by the effect of heat.[14] The high temperatures and material constraints have limited the applications of this approach.

So I then looked up welding temps and found that arc welding is anywhere from 5000C to 20000C, more than enough to break water into hydrogen and oxygen. TIG welding isn't quite as hot at 3380C, but still enough to break water apart. And from the video in the article it's obvious that there was at least some water in the tank when it exploded.

So depending on how much water was in the tank and what type of welding they were doing, it's possible to break the water into hydrogen and oxygen. If the tank is well vented then it shouldn't have been a problem. But if the hydrogen was building up in the tank and it gets hit by a spark or flame, then boom.

Normally I wouldn't have even considered the possibility, but I remembered reading about hydrogen explosions at nuclear reactors having a meltdown. For example, Fukushima had hydrogen explosions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster#Hydrogen_explosions

Is this a likely scenario? Probably not, but it would be interesting to see the analysis of the disaster after they investigate things.

And Rick was correct:

https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article252938753.html

Basically the contractor neglected to check for methane in the tank as required before starting welding and someone died as a result.