The following is the next logical step to my line of reasoning proposed with the Hilton incident from last night. I am not completely familiar with the gas system that supplies the Tiki Torches at Hilton but base my following comments first off on observations made between sips of Mai tais, Pinya Coladas and other assorted umbrella adorned drinks at the Tree Bar over the course of the past 30 years or so combined with Knowledge attained from my former 8 ½ years in the US Navy. I have noted that the valves that serve the lines that provide fuel to the tiki torches all have a single handle. When the torches are lit the position of the valve is parallel to the line. When the torches are not lit the position of the single valve handle is perpendicular to the line forming a T-shape. These are called ball valves. A ball valve is a valve with a spherical disc, the part of the valve which controls the flow through it. The sphere has a hole, or port, through the middle so that when the port is in line with both ends of the valve, flow will occur. When the valve is closed, the hole is perpendicular to the ends of the valve, and flow is blocked. By design Ball valves are go/stop valves that have excellent stopping characteristics for fluid in a closed system and despite what the listing in Wikapedia states they have, “ALMOST” zero fine throttle ability. This is by design and is usually used in systems that handle volatile fluids. You want a system like that to 100% never leak and have a clear indication that the system is either open or closed to flow. It is physically impossible to make a valve that does both the job of stopping fluid flow 100% of the time and at the same time provide the ability to, “fine throttle the flow of fluid”. This has to do with the total area of the mating surface to stop the flow of fluid. This mating surface is composed of two parts, “the valve” and the, “valve seat” In a valve whose purpose it is to stop the flow of fluid you want the total surface area of the mating surface to be as small as possible so it can quickly & positively seat without leaks. In a valve whose purpose it is to fine throttle flow you want the highest total surface area possible. The bigger the area with respect to the size of the valve the more fine control it offers. More surface area means that there is more control surface to impede the flow of fluid. Impedance to the flow of fluid interrupts laminar fluid flow and introduces turbulent flow which in turn gives fine tune control. An example of this is the valve in your shower. The problem with increased resistance is that this type of throttled flow tends to wear out the matting surfaces over time causing a leak. How many of you have shower valves that leak? Now what does all this have to do with Hilton..and for that matter all the hotels that have tiki torches on their beach side fed by some sort of combustible gas? Well after the tiki torches are lit sometimes when the flame coming out of the torches is too high grounds staff may try to, “lower the flames” by throttling with the ball valve. When you throttle with a ball valve you have to put the handle, “almost” parallel to the pipe and only in the last few degrees of travel will a ball valve show any form of resistance and control. The valve is not designed to be positioned like this and over the course of time is easily damaged when used in this capacity. If they keep doing this night after night, day after day, month after month and year after year eventually the valve is going to fail slightly. You have to remember something here; slightly is all it takes and when the valve leaks the gas, which is heavier than air, tends to settle in the lowest places…there are all sorts of little pockets at the Koi pond for this to happen. Once it reaches critical mass all it needs is a spark. I don’t know what the weather patterns were yesterday but I do recall K57 talking about some kind of heat index…that is impliles there is a lack of wind! If the gas was shut off at say one the previous morning, it had at least 15 hours to accumulate. Then all you need is someone to spark up a cigarette..or perhaps even start a fire dance show! I don’t know because I wasn’t there.
Posted on: Fri, 27 Sep 2013 05:12:45 +0000
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