The fate of Zeppelin L50

[Guest]

On 20/10/2017 at 21:35, pasol said:

 

Hi octagon7,

 

It's a L 50's crew list:

http://ribewiki.dk/da/Luftskib_L_50

 

What is a name of your gran-grand-father?

Regards,

pasol.

 

Hi Pasol,

 

thank you very much for the L50 list and the photo. My grand-grand father (O. Renger) was on the L50! We are very happy to see him on the list. And we also quite sure who he is on the picture. Since many years we were trying to figured out more and more details about his life on the zeppelin. A lot of archives (esp. French old newspapers) were digitalized, so we hope that in the next years we will get more pieces of the puzzle.

 

Regards,

octagon7

 

[Interested]

I believe (but greater expertise will correct me, I'm sure) that the reason Zeppelins didn't immediately burst into flames is because the hydrogen pressure was slightly above atmospheric, so gas leaked out rather than oxygen leaking in.  To combust you need an oxygen/hydrogen mix.  The leaking gas rapidly dispersed so didn't hang around in any significant concentration.

Of course most people's perception is coloured by events later, in the US.  I believe recent research points to the metallic aluminium paint contributing to the rapid combustion.

[Heid the Ba]

15 hours ago, Interested said:

I believe (but greater expertise will correct me, I'm sure) that the reason Zeppelins didn't immediately burst into flames is because the hydrogen pressure was slightly above atmospheric, so gas leaked out rather than oxygen leaking in.  To combust you need an oxygen/hydrogen mix.  The leaking gas rapidly dispersed so didn't hang around in any significant concentration.

That is my understanding as well.  Tangentially that is how they had a smoking salon on the Hindenburg and other luxury airships, they kept the salon over pressurised so that there was a constant trickle of air out and gas couldn't leak in.  The kitchens were limited to hot plates with no naked flames or glowing elements, and so on.

[Frank_East]

Hydrogen has a LEL (lower explosive limit) of 4% and an UEL (upper explosion limit) of 75 % in oxygen.For an explosion to occur the gas to oxygen ratio has to lie within the the LEL and UEL ranges and a source of ignition must be present.

 

Hydrogen is one of those gases which when it leaks or escapes,it can generate its own ignition source through the leakage orifice...ignition follows resulting in a flame determined by the leakage rate.Should the leakage be of a large magnitude,an explosion or fire will usually be the outcome. Once an hydrogen fire has been ignited, extinguishing can only be achieved by isolating/shutting off the gas supply.