2016 Ford Superduty Looks Hot!

Disagree Turtle (not often)...all metals will burn

Repeat that aluminum dust is part of solid rocket fuel. Alu dust is also expolsive.

Anyone look up Thermite? Iron powder and alu powder.

Aluminum burns at around 7,000F. Changes from solid to liquid to vapor at that
point will burn. The alu is the fuel in solid rocket fuel and the
oxidizer is many times rubber dust mixed and suspended in some sort
of binder (think epoxy)

Gasoline and Diesel does NOT get that hot and why said earlier that there has to
be some catalyst in the flames

Must be something like magnesium or some such...then the coolant comes into
play. This kind of metal fire will be so hot and active, that it will split the
water molecules to become hydrogen gas (two) and oxygen gas (one) of the H2O

Think alloy and how lead/tin has a higher melting point, but mix them into an
alloy (solder) it will have a much lower melting point...and burn temp

Toss in electrical contribution and can see how it ignites and sustains. An arc
welder's temp is up there to burn aluminum/magnesium/steel/etc

Reason it doesn't burn with a welder...is that a whole lot of the
surface area needs to at that min temp. Doesn't happen because of
the thermal wicking of the rest of the part

Once aluminum gets there in temp...it is pretty much self sustaining as long
as it has oxygen. Hose it with H2O and it likes that, as that is where or one
other source of oxygen (H2O)

An aluminum body truck does not burn any faster than a steel body truck. It just melts unlike a steel truck. Aluminum is NOT flammable.



An old fire chief told me a joke once and it goes like this:

He said: If you are ever in a car that has a fire extinguisher and a tire catches on fire what should you do?

I said: Bail out of the car with the fire extinguisher and aim the fie extinguisher at the tire and pull the trigger?

He said: Nope, bail out of the car with the fire extinguisher in hand and walk away. It will save you about $20 to $30 bucks. :B

His point was, once a tire gets really burning, good luck with putting it out with a little fire extinguisher. It was a point well taken.

Quote = GoPackGo "

GoPackGo wrote:
I don't see this as such a big deal. They run vehicles in the desert to see if anything will fail at those extraordinary temps. And they probably do cold weather testing too. The idea of testing is to see if anything fails before they start selling them to the public. Might be something as simple as an oil cooler or fuel line clamp that failed. The important thing is to figure out why it happened.

"


True. BUT, the significance of these pictures is that they reveal what happens when an aluminum bodied truck catches fire.

Regardless of HOW the fire started, and regardless of whether or not Ford resolves the root cause of the fire, what we are able to see with these images is that IF and WHEN a fire does occur with an aluminum bodied Super Duty, it burns fast, hot, and melts the body entirely.

The question is, as older retirees, will we be able to get out in time? As younger vacationers with our little children all buckled up in car seats in the back, will we be able to unstrap the morass of harnesses in time to get them out in time?

It isn't the cause of the fire that is of concern in this prototype vehicle. That will no doubt be fixed before the first unit gets sold. Of a more longterm concern is the result of the fire. The new aluminum body will likely will not be addressed until many more similar incidents occur, which won't happen without there being several hundred thousand built and sold to consumers, where they can be subjected to all the real life rigors of being on the road, including being exposed to causes of fire that have nothing to do with the truck.

According to a press release they were actually testing the new cab off procedure. Just a little fine tuning and it should be perfected.

I guess this is old news by now. But the last few pics shows a little over a wheel barrow of slag left on the road side. Notice there is NO FRAME, or engine, copper wire is most of what is left and it BURNED in 21 minutes. If this happened while towing your 5th wheel, every thing would be lost.
What happened to the trailer they were towing be hind the truck? its not any where to be seen in any of the later photos.

Winged One wrote:

Dog Folks wrote:
Golden_HVAC: They were just testing to see if a Ram could swim. It couldn't. :)

Thought they had been swimming across the Rio Grande to the U.S. for years?

Good one and true!

The test shown was in salt water. The Rio Grande is fresh water. They were not used to salt :B:B

Dog Folks wrote:
Golden_HVAC: They were just testing to see if a Ram could swim. It couldn't. :)

Thought they had been swimming across the Rio Grande to the U.S. for years?

Ever since the Pinto flame problem, Ford decided to test more aggressively.

If you don't test them, until a few burst into flames...then you just aren't testing them hard enough.

I don't see this as such a big deal. They run vehicles in the desert to see if anything will fail at those extraordinary temps. And they probably do cold weather testing too. The idea of testing is to see if anything fails before they start selling them to the public. Might be something as simple as an oil cooler or fuel line clamp that failed.

The important thing is to figure out why it happened.

I'll bet this was another happy Ford owner who reached out to the Make A Wish Foundation!

I can't tell you how many times I wished my 6.0 Powerstroke would have caught on fire!