Food Truck Explosion in Philly- propane!

maillemaker wrote:
From the video, you can tell the tank itself suffered a catastrophic failure prior to the ignition, as there is a giant cloud of propane that blows out from the truck, which then ignites and burns off pretty quickly.

Good eye. Had it been a true tank explosion (aka BLEVE) the fireball would have been much bigger. A 20 lb. tank BLEVE can create a fireball the size of a house, and according to the video those were 100 lb. tanks.

Harvard wrote:
Maybe the tank was full and little or no vapour space to allow the liquid to expand, then the pressure relief valve failed to release the resulting pressure. The propane certainly did not ignite inside the tank.

This sounds exactly right- especially given the clearly visible cloud of propane seen in the vid immediately before it caught fire, likely from an ignition source inside the rig. It wasn't afire when it left the tank.

Overfilling leaves no room for expansion of the liquid propane, and it will do so very quickly in hot conditions. Per the tank "exploding": They don't show a pic of the bad tank with a hole in it so it's hard to say if the gas got out through the valve or not...doesn't really matter since that vapor cloud would appear regardless of the point of exit.

Prevention of this sort of thing is exactly why the tanks most of us use are now equipped with overfill prevention devices. The tanks on this truck were of a size not covered by that requirement.

From the video, you can tell the tank itself suffered a catastrophic failure prior to the ignition, as there is a giant cloud of propane that blows out from the truck, which then ignites and burns off pretty quickly.

Steve

It was a food truck with 2 100lb tanks in rear compartments

Maybe the tank was full and little or no vapour space to allow the liquid to expand, then the pressure relief valve failed to release the resulting pressure. The propane certainly did not ignite inside the tank.

The news also said a second propane tank on the truck was not damaged.
Maybe the one that blew up was faulty?

It is scary but, I don't think it's anything we should worry about.

The tank was found fifty feet away with it's top blown outward.
So yes, it blew up but it looks like the fire bal ignited afterwards.
The question is how? In the video it shows the area engulfed in a for or mist and then igniting. Could the tank, which was mounted on the back corner of the food truck, have been compromised or quickly over heated?

I doubt very much the tank exploded as the officer said. Propane tanks don't blow up.....the gas from them can cause an explosion once mixed with oxygen.