Car explodes. Two to hospital.

Message

Indian · #1 Post by **Indian** » Thu Feb 18, 2010 11:56 pm

I dont know what happened here. The papers wrote that the owner filled wrong gas and he and a passenger who sat on the front seat were taken to hospital in serious condition in Stockholm.
My guess is that he filled CNG into an LPG tank. I think the CNG tanks are red in colour and should be impossible to connect to the wrong tank.
Could the owner have bought the cheapest bits and pieces and installed this himself?
In Sweden there are very few LPG stations and most of them are CNG which is under 200 bar pressure....
I am still trying to find out more about what happened here.
Since I am not allowed to post links I can post the picture of the car. I can always mail it to anyone who asks. Just mail me.

Indian · #2 Post by **Indian** » Fri Feb 19, 2010 12:00 am

I have uploaded the picture of the car to my gallery.....

Gilbertd · #3 Post by **Gilbertd** » Fri Feb 19, 2010 12:25 am

I would also suspect CNG, it's blown the side out of the toroidal tank. What ignited it though?

Indian · #4 Post by **Indian** » Fri Feb 19, 2010 12:33 am

There was no ignition at all. To me it looks like CNG was filled into a LPG tank.

rossko · #5 Post by **rossko** » Fri Feb 19, 2010 2:31 am

www . stockholmnews . com / more.aspx?NID=4739

Active_Lad · #6 Post by **Active_Lad** » Fri Feb 19, 2010 7:28 am

Looking at the picture, it doesn't look like there was a fire as there's no charring on the back of the (?) Volvo. Looks to me like it was simply the tank that gave way under the pressure. Now that would have been a VERY loud bang!

Indian · #7 Post by **Indian** » Fri Feb 19, 2010 10:06 am

The link said it. DIY conversion with no knowledge. He fills CNG to a LPG. Thats 200 bar in a 4 bar tank.

Active_Lad · #8 Post by **Active_Lad** » Fri Feb 19, 2010 10:22 am

I'm no physicist, but 200 bar in a 4 bar tank is maybe a 50 fold over pressure? In a 50 litre tank, he would have hit standard pressure after something like 1 litre? And at 200bar I presume it fills pretty quickly. Since 200bar is 2,900PSI, it's no surprising that a release of pressure like that in a confined space blew the back of the car off!

redzed · #9 Post by **redzed** » Fri Feb 19, 2010 10:30 am

The motering journalist claims that the car was imported into Sweden just 2 weeks ago and is a gasol/LPG car which are extremely rare in Sweden and almost impossible to fill.

Maybe the confusion with different fillers/adapters across Europe prompted this guy to buy or even make his own adapter.

He could have forced threads together etc and used lots of gas PTFE tape etc, who knows, a bit of DIY gone wrong.

rossko · #10 Post by **rossko** » Fri Feb 19, 2010 12:04 pm

E-marked LPG tanks are certified to 24bar, not 4. I reckon that means they'd still burst under a tenfold overpressure though ...

E-marked LPG valves include a PRV - a simple safety valve that lifts and vents at 24bar. It's possible that the flow out of that is more restricted than the flow pumping in ... but the roar and stink of gas would alert even the numptiest of fillers before building up unsafe pressures surely? It takes some time to pump up CNG tanks.

As said, fillers are deliberately incompatible. Someone made a huge bodge here, it was not an innocent fill-up mistake.

MarkJones · #11 Post by **MarkJones** » Mon Feb 22, 2010 6:19 pm

hate to be one of those two guys .not only the explosion but masses of freeze burns ..

all the best.markj

rossko · #12 Post by **rossko** » Mon Feb 22, 2010 7:56 pm

No freeze burns ... CNG is truly just gas; no liquid, no evaporation, no freezing. Lucky to escape with their lives from the shrapnel though!!

Wandering Minstrel · Tue Feb 23, 2010 11:18 pm

Although nowhere near as much as with an evaporating liquid, there is some freezing effect with an expanding gas, and given that this was such a rapid expansion, there possibly was a danger of freeze burns, although I suspect you would have to be right next to the expanding gas.

As you mentioned earlier though, this has to be a monumental DIY cock-up, as a NGV1 CNG dispenser hose won't even get near an LPG filler point. They are radically different in design.

I'm amazed there were no other injuries to people on the forecourt. The people in the car did at least have some "material" between them and the tank (seats etc) but someone stood on the forecourt could easily have gotten a chunk of tank in the face.

Doesn't even bear thinking about!

gfrost · #14 Post by **gfrost** » Wed Feb 24, 2010 9:02 am

My Brother Lived in Sweden for many years, he found a Swedish link

http: // blogg.aftonbladet.se/robertcollin/2010/01/livsfarligt-att-tanka-fel-gas

He said the heading reads...
"Extremely dangerous filling up with the wrong gas. And impossible to make a mistake".

he said he could translate the whole thing, but the sentence that makes it all clear is...
"Det borde inte gå att tanka LPG ur en pump med fordonsgas, men med en hemgjord otillåten adapter är allt möjligt."
which reads.

"It shouldn't be possible to fill up with LPG from a pump with CNG, but with a forbidden home-made adaptor anything is possible".