Interesting demonstration of hydraulic pressure

Sitting in my easy chair yesterday I heard a clatter in the kitchen. I went to see what had fallen off the drying rack, and instead found a tidal wave of oil advancing across the worktop towards me.

We buy olive oil in large cans and I decant it into a square glass bottle. Last time I did this, I overfilled the bottle and screwed the lid on leaving no ullage, then put it back in its accustomed place next to the combination microwave oven.

My wife was using the conventional oven setting to cook a simnel cake for Easter (yes, I'm a lucky blighter) and the side of the oven got hotter than it usually does though still not above hand-hot. The expansion due to the heat was enough to burst the bottle, and by golly, did it burst!

Naturally the oil had spread quickly and soaked into everything it could reach. So I had the joy of cleaning up a litre of olive oil laced with glass, from big shards to tiny splinters.

I shan't make that mistake again.

George

I once saw a large casting split apart by hydraulic pressure. A blind hole had been filled with grease and oil from a load chain and as the chain had to be replaced a 25mm eye bolt was screwed into a hole for that purpose to take the weight of the counterbalance with chain hoist. The engineer partly screwed the eye bolt in and as it hadn't gone all the way in, used a bar to make sure it went all the way in with a bit of welly. There was a large bang as half a 1 tonne weight crashed down one and a half meters inside the column of a large CNC mill. It took a while to get the half out. You could see the contamination on the half that stayed put on chain.

David

My grandad was too mean to get proper airlocks for his beer brewing bottles and screwed the tops back on

There was a "whump" from the living room cupboard one night as the first bottle exploded

Since there was a rack of 25 bottles in that cupboard the door had to stay shut for another month

A new hydraulic pump was spilt open as it started due to a blocked/jambed relief valve, the 0 - 5000psi gauge in the system never worked again. Even small hydraulic jacks and rams often work at 10,000psi.- YES 4 zeros ! I have 25 and 50 ton jacks.

There was a news item a number of years ago on the bomb squad being called in to deal with a quantity of home brew bottles that were exploding ! I used to use 5gallon stainless barrels, the valve gear was altered and a sink tap fitted - it really was ON TAP ! Noel.