TAKING THE HEAT OFF
Page 25
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A new concept for preventing explosions with highly inflammable liquids has been developed by the Expanded Metal Company.
Known as Explosafe, it is a system of packing fuel tanks with a honeycomb structure of aluminium alloy foil manufactured from a sheet with an initial thickness of 0.04mm (about 11/2 thou).
The principle of operation is that the high thermal conductivity of the foil will dispense any build-up of heat so rapidly that no hot-spot can develop and cause an explosion.
The company also claims that Explosafe can suppress explosions in fuel (or chemical) tanks subjected to high impact as the result of, say a vehicle collision.
The alloy material is known as ExplofoiI and it is claimed that, when packed into a fuel tank, it occupies less than one per cent of the total volume.
A quantity of foil sufficient to fill a one gallon container would weigh around 0.1kg.
One additional advantage of the Explofoil is that it prevents wave formation on the surface of liquids.
One possibility resulting from this is that fuel tanker baffles would not be necessary, unless they are incorporated as structural stiffening.