Railroad Tank Implosion

• aphily
  April 23rd, 2008 at 8:22 am

  Nope, the pressure was maximum arround 1000 hPa, as this max you can achieve outside ( vaccum to normal every day air pressure ).
  They forgot to ventilate the tank when letting the liquid out of it so the normal athmpsphere pressure crushed the tank.

• ren
  April 23rd, 2008 at 8:45 am

  yup real time you can tell by the bouncing and the settling afterwards

• JP
  April 23rd, 2008 at 9:07 am

  It looks like the trick people do with sealed cans filled with steam then quickly cooled where the air pressure squishes the can. But on a much larger scale.

• Thespian24601
  April 23rd, 2008 at 9:16 am

  Yeah, that’s definitely real time. My chem teacher used to use a vacuum for many things, this included. He loved to “implode” things with a vacuum, and boil water at room temperature.

• andrewdoane
  April 23rd, 2008 at 9:43 am

  Incredible! Awesome post.

• LoveZombie
  April 23rd, 2008 at 9:58 am

  That would scare the crap out of me. Even if I knew it was going to happen.

• andrewdoane
  April 23rd, 2008 at 10:00 am

  I wonder if the Mythbusters would test this - i.e. what kind of process/substance could make this happen.

• phoomp
  April 23rd, 2008 at 12:38 pm

  If Mythbusters tested this, it would have to *ex*plode rather than *im*plode!

• LJames
  April 23rd, 2008 at 1:09 pm

  It loked like an invisible fist crushed it like a soda can.

• JamesM
  April 23rd, 2008 at 1:10 pm

  >I wonder if the Mythbusters would test this - i.e. what kind of process/substance could make this happen.

  Doesn’t take much.

  Take a metal container (paint thinner container, used up, rinsed out outside, clean), pour some water in it, boil it on a stove, once it’s steaming… screw the cap back on. Kill the heat. Watch it implode.

• Christophe
  April 23rd, 2008 at 2:18 pm

  I agree with JamesM. The cooling of the hot sealed wagon, sealed also its fate.

  Try that (bad video quality but you get the gist of it) :
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbakZL62d6U

• Ali S.
  April 23rd, 2008 at 2:34 pm

  Oddly enough this reminds me of a Simpsons quote: Implosion, I thought you said explosion?!

  I’m so easily amused these days. And I agree with LJames…it does look like a huge fist just punched it!

• Jonathon Nierengarten
  April 23rd, 2008 at 5:11 pm

  It looks like real time. But how? Cool vid

• Kent
  April 23rd, 2008 at 10:49 pm

  As aphilly said, the tank car was crushed by the atmospheric pressure outside the car. At sea level, standard atmospheric pressure is about 14.7 psi (pounds per square inch). When you consider how many square inches there are on a tanker car it becomes obvious that the atmospheric pressure is enormous. An average tanker car is a cylinder about 10′ in diameter by 80′ long. That roughly translates to a surface area of around 400,000 square inches. The total atmospheric pressure on a tanker car would therefore be around 6 million pounds.

  To withstand that kind of pressure, a tanker car would need to be built like a submarine with massive steel walls and internal bulwarks. Of course they are not, which is why they must be vented when being pumped dry of liquid so the atmospheric pressure inside and outside the car remains equalized.

  By the way, anyone can demonstrate this same principle in their own kitchen. Take an empty aluminum soda can, pour a few spoonfuls of water into it and heat it on the stove until the water is boiling. Then use a pair of salad tongs to take the can, turn it upside down and insert it into a bowl of ice water. The aluminum can will instantly crush with a satisfying crunch.

• Algonkin
  April 24th, 2008 at 6:31 am

  Very well explained Kent. Thanks

• ted
  April 24th, 2008 at 8:10 am

  I wonder if Klaus the lift truck driver had anything to do with this.

• Sid Morrison
  April 24th, 2008 at 9:31 am

  Kent gave a nice explanation, but I’ll pick a small nit. The atmospheric PRESSURE on the tanker is ~14.7 psi, not 6 million pounds. That 6 million pounds is FORCE, rather than pressure. Force = Pressure x Area. Small pressure x big area = a lot of force and it’s force that squishes it.

  Obviously Kent knows the distinction between pressure and force, but it’s like nails on a blackboard (or people saying “less” when they mean “fewer”) when I hear them interchanged.

• Eric
  April 24th, 2008 at 11:09 am

  either way you look at it, that is amazing. i actually tested bill nye’s soda can test…it worked.

• Skipweasel
  April 24th, 2008 at 12:58 pm

  If you really want to cringe, read the YouTube comments - there’s some seriously ill-informed people out there.

• Skipweasel
  April 24th, 2008 at 12:59 pm

  Or LiveLeak. Or whatever!

• Alannah
  April 24th, 2008 at 10:09 pm

  LJames-

  I’m with you. It was obviously an invisible fist, for there’s no force in nature that could wreck that kind of havoc. We must find the invisible fist, befriend it, and make it protect us from the far unfriendlier invisible foot, and the deadly invisible stream of urine.
  

• aphily
  April 25th, 2008 at 12:27 am

  Alannah Full Ack. Incredible comments on YoutTube.

  By the way, thats an railroad tanker from Eva Eisenbahn Verkehrsgesellschaft AG ( railroad traffic corporation ) from Germany. It is used to transport crude and heavy fuel oil from northern german oilfields and refineries.

  No heat >50°C involved here.

• Jonathon Nierengarten
  April 25th, 2008 at 10:46 am

  Allanah,

  Seriously funny.

• c-dub
  April 25th, 2008 at 4:59 pm

  In order for this to happen as described, the liquid would have to be pumped out under significant pressure, no? If you simply opened up the bottom of the tank to let the liquid out, it wouldn’t implode even if it wasn’t vented — the liquid would stop flowing if air couldn’t get in to take its place.

  (@Kent, Nice explanation, thanks — but do you mean you mean bulkhead rather than bulwark? A bulwark is a defensive wall, like a fortification; a bulkhead is a partition, usually inside a boat or submarine, that strengthens it and prevents leaks or fires from spreading.)

• Jack Quick
  April 28th, 2008 at 3:57 pm

  A couple of gallons of liquid nitrogen dispersed quickly with a small explosive could easily lower the pressure inside the sealed tank enough to allow atmospheric pressure to crush it immediately.

  Quickly releasing liquid from the bottom of the sealed tank could draw enough vacuum inside to crush it as well, so long as the weight of the liquid causes the pressure at the drain to greatly exceed atmospheric pressure.

• DP
  April 30th, 2008 at 7:45 am

  There is a voice that says, in german, Seven hundred sixty (760). Must be hPa.

• Eric
  May 2nd, 2008 at 5:54 pm

  its fake, someone just bought their first editer and posted it on youtube.

Want your own avatar? Get one for free at Gravatar!