“MYTHBUSTERS”: DANGER OF GAS LIGHTERS

One-use lighter … what is this? Harmless flint or pocket danger in plastic box?

There are some myth exist about several circumstances when a simple lighter can harm or even kill a man. Experts from “Mythbusters” program were founding out if one-use lighter can explore if a slag, for example, will get inside it. Welding shop can be an ideal place to provoke accident with a lighter, can’t it?

There are three items are required to make an explosion: fuel, spark resource and oxygen. The legend says: if you burn through a lighter during welding works gas will outflow and the air together with high temperature will organize an explosion. Preparing this experiment Adam installed a box on metal bar and placed a burner with remote control next to it. This burner is a spark resource and resource of hot slag. The lighter was placed directly under the burner. What will happen to it?

Switched on burner has made a cascade of sparks. The first lighter began melting and burning, and gas came out and inflamed. The second lighter has explored – it flew away from test bench in beautiful fireball. The third lighter followed its footsteps.

In the second part of the program the lighter was tested in a drier. The lighter spent 1 hour in a drier cylinder heated to 70 °С – nothing happened. To provoke an explosion it will be enough to have heat and then a source of a spark. These factors didn’t present in the second experiment. The legend was destroyed.

In the next legend about lighters the busters checked if something terrible would happen after you swash the lighter with a brassy. After a series of experiments the experts of the program concluded that a swash of a lighter with the brassy can cause an explosion and fire.

One-use lighters have quit long list of precautions: don’t pierce, don’t set fire, don’t heat over 50 °С, don’t leave on the sun, and so on …. Can heated-up car provoke a catastrophe? It’s better to check! There was used a toaster as a control panel. As a result even at the highest temperature of the control panel the lighter didn’t explode. The lowest temperature to make the lighter melt and deflate is 150 °С. So, the myth hasn’t stood the test.

Then Adam and Jamie decided to launch an analogue of a man to the test with the burner. The legend didn’t stand the test. Only the clothes burnt from the slag but the lighter was calm and quiet. It’s completely impossible to die from it.

There is a following legend next in turn. A car was fulfilled with lighters (more than 500 pieces). A vacuum heater was placed above the lighters and turned on. The lighters started popping in strong heat, discharging gas and burning one by one. The busters stroke spark and the car fulfilled with fire; explosion crushed out rear window. This is an ideal reason to leave off smoking.

As a result: 500 lighters cause massive explosion if there is a source of a spark.

Conclusion: danger of one-use lighters, which present gas tanks in miniature, are greatly exaggerated, as well as fear of independent gasification. Myths remain myths.

They break down.