Hazards of high pressure tanks

[KJNDIVER]

Some of you FLA guys probably already know and remember this but I just came across this today and had never heard of scuba tanks exploding before. If nothing else, just a reminder of how dangerous these things can be.

http://www.napsd.com/cscuba.htm

Now I know that some of you will cite the sport of freediving, but hey, Im a big boy and I like to breathe. lol

[johnhermes]

That tank was a standard 80 CF 3000 psi tank, not a steel 3500 psi tank.

[joens]

the article says that the tank had a current VIS sticker on it. However sustained load cracking will be evident to a trained inspector several years before it gets bad enough to explode.

Chris Joens, PSI inspector# 13927

[inletsurf]

We had a situation about 2 yrs ago where some guy brought an old steel tank into Sebastian Dive center. I don't know all the specifics, but the tank exploded during filling, killed the owner of the shop, and sent pieces of the roof as far as across Hwy US1. Sad story.

[fishhunta]

i am currently a force-e employee. i met chris as he continued to work for the shop until about 2 years ago. that was actually the third exploding tank in force-e history. the first killed the employee, the second didn't hurt anyone, just shot up through the roof, the third was chris's. i always remember this when customers ask me to overfill shitty old aluminum tanks.

[f94gator]

I'd think all tanks are high pressure, just some higher pressure than others. 3000 psi is nothing to sneeze at!

[blue gun]

joens, how long is the psi class and how much did it cost? I always wanted to do that. Had some LP steel tanks one time 2400+10 so fill pressure was 2640 max. Went to this cave diving shop and by the time we got to the spring my guage was reading 3850psi:eek: I didn't even ask him to over fill my tanks he just did it. I like having extra air but don't want to blow the fu@k up on the way diving.

[joens]

Blue Gun, the course takes pretty much a whole day and mine cost $215 but I think it varies from about 200 -250 depending on instructor.You sure learn a lot though. I have a few tanks some of them older and I was always a little concerned about them even though they had been "inspected" .most of the people around here that work in the dive shops are doing good to find the dive shop in the morning,so I never really trusted anything they did.But after taking the class I know what to look for and so I know my tanks are good .no more worries.
Joens

[fernandezh]

Pretty interesting article. It is a shame what happened to the kid who was filling the tanks. Though there is never anything that could make up for losing use of body parts, I hope that workman's comp. and the LDS he was working for took good care of him.

[FredT]

DIVE STEEL!

My concerns with ALL aluminum tanks used in sea water are wel documented.

IMNSHO anyone with more than 6 tanks should have done the PSI course, or at least have gone over the course materials that pertains to the tank types they should be inspecting. I do inspection on about 5 aluminum tanks a year, and have an eddy current test done on those that are in the applicalble years. NOTE THAT USE OF AN EDDY CURRENT TEST ON POST 87 LUXFERS AND CATALINAS IS PROHIBITED! These tanks will give false positive test results for neck cracks. All the rest of my tans are steels. My personal AL tanks are used to run pneumatic tools, NOT DIVING!

FT

[junior]

The only aluminum tanks we had problems with were Walter Kidde's when I was working at the dive shop. PSI carries a few books on cylinders that may be of interest to some of you. Email is psicylinders@msn.com last time I checked.