BOFH: The day the office budget bombed – literally “And this was the extinguisher here, was it?” the Health and Safety feeb asks. “That’s the one!” I say. “And you don’t know of any reason how it came to be filled with diesel instead of water?” “None!” the PFY lies. “But then it may have been like that when we took the building over!” Luckily the H&S droid isn’t likely to …
http://www.pixunlimited.co.uk/pdf/news/transport/ladbrokegrove.pdf
4.36: It was agreed that the source of fuel for the fireball was finely dispersed diesel fuel
4.38 The fireball is likely to have been caused by the ignition of airborne fuel within the coach.
I also got a free video projector because of it, OK the screws were all a bit rusty and it was a bit bashed after the little incendiary incident destroyed my employers head office. Even seen a 19" rack of SCSI drives that's been thrown 12 feet or so into the racks on the other side of the room ? So yes you're correct. . . . diesel DOES burn . . . what are these "diesel doesn't burn" people on . . . how do they thing the "bangs" inside a diesel engine occur ?
The operative phrase was "doesn't burn well", which is true. Diesel is almost inert unless it's either atomised, or heated until it starts to evaporate, or heated and put under pressure.
Notice that diesel engines don't have sparkplugs? They don't work. You can get a petrol engine running with diesel by priming it with regular petrol and then relying on the pressure of the cylinders to ignite the diesel once it's running, but it'll get pretty annoyed at you in short order and probably won't work after you've stopped it, mostly because it's not mixing enough air and not operating at a high enough pressure to fully ignite the diesel fuel - which is also, incidentally, why putting diesel in a petrol engine produces lots and lots and lots of lovely smoke so everyone can see what a numpty you've been.
The reason is, the fractions we generally call Diesel aren't particularly volatile. You can toss a match in the stuff and it'll go out. You can do the same with a puddle of regular unleaded tool but it's a lot more risky because of all the vapours hovering above it. To get it to become volatile enough to burn you have to warm it up until it starts to evaporate. A diesel engine relies on compression effect to heat the diesel until it vapourises and explodes. That's were the bang comes from.
Which isn't surprising when you remember that the diesel engine was originally invented to burn brewery waste...
So...
1. No solid or liquid actually burns. Only vapor burns. So that goes for all liquids, not just diesel.
2. It is perfectly valid to say that something burns well even though it might take some effort to get going. I will for instance claim that firewood burns rather well.
3. Petrol engines can't really run on diesel, but diesel engines can run on petrol. However the petrol will no lubricate the diesel pump and thus break the engine. You might get a petrol engine to work with diesel as you say when you have petrol as a primer, but you are really running it on weak petrol and you will clog the spark plug fast. Diesel engines on the other hand are in essence multifuel engines.
4. Diesel engines does not rely on compression to heat the diesel until it vaporises and explodes. The compression of the diesel is done in the diesel pump and pressed into the engine when the piston is at the top or near the top. The nozzle causes the atomisation and the heat that is caused by the compression of the _air_ in the cylinder ignites it. If you compressed a diesel and air mixture with the piston it would ignite earlier and earlier as the engine heated. You would also need to run it on much lower compression. The compression does not heat the diesel, it heats the air.
5. The point here was that spraying diesel under pressure onto a fire is maybe not like throwing gasoline on the fire, but still is likely to fuel it.
"I happened to notice the odour of ... urine."
"Oh, you mean when I tried to put the fire out after the extinguisher made things worse?"
"The same way you tried to put your boss out?" the H&S guy snaps, holding up another bag with the boss's scorched shirt in it.
"It was an act of mercy!"
Act of mercy indeed :D :D
don't think of it as Overtime, think of it more of as 'Insurance'
To be said in a Mafia style accent.
Again my week is complete, Simon glad to have you back is it for good now or will you continue to tease us with long breaks?
Also why has BOFH not been exposed to 'Project Process' & ITIL more plenty of great material there.
I think Gate meetings with a twist and a service catalog with 'special items' would fun.
don't think of it as Overtime, think of it more of as 'Insurance'
To be said in a Mafia style accent.
Again my week is complete, Simon glad to have you back is it for good now or will you continue to tease us with long breaks?
Also why has BOFH not been exposed to 'Project Process' & ITIL more plenty of great material there.
I think Gate meetings with a twist and a service catalog with 'special items' would fun.
telnet hsswitch2
Trying 10.6.66.202...
Connected to hsswitch2.corp.bofh.net.
Escape character is '^]'.
User Access Verification
Username: bofh
Password:
hsswitch2>en
Password:
hsswitch2#terminal monitor
hsswitch2#ignite
% Incomplete command.
hsswitch2#ignite ?
now ignite immediately
at ignite at a specific time/date
in ignite after a time interval
cancel Cancel pending ignition
hsswitch2#ignite now
Nov 18 23:23:15: %SYS-5-IGNITION: Initiated ignition due to user request.
Nov 18 23:23:20: %SYS-0-ONFIRE: Supervisor is on fire!
Nov 18 23:23:24: %SYS-2-SUP_TEMPMINORFAIL: Supervisor minor temperature threshold exceeded
Nov 18 23:23:26: %SYS-0-SUP_TEMPMAJORFAIL: Supervisor major temperature threshold exceeded
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