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<div style="direction: ltr;font-family: Tahoma;color: #000000;font-size: 10pt;">The various local regulations and codes that make up a sort of "unwritten constitution" for alcohol collection fire management are based on a common scenario: that all the fluid
in the room is suddenly and uniformly imperiled. A major fire adjacent to an alcohol room might indeed bring that about, but once a collection is beyond a certain physical size this becomes less likely. Any event that caused all the fluid in our wet collections
at the Academy to catch fire and run into the drains, for example, would most likely also destroy the building.<br>
One aspect of the matter that seems to get less attention and that I feel we could usefully discuss here is the effect on the scenario of average container size. I would guess that the larger the number of containers (and thus the smaller the average container)
the safer the collection is. There's a huge difference between breaking a gallon jar and breaking a 6-dram vial, both in terms of the volume of vapor released and the burn duration of the contents.
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In addition, each container has its own thermal characteristics. If the room gets hot, my guess (again) would be that jars with larger-diameter lids will fail first as (a) their pressure-bearing flat surface is larger relative to the height of the threads and
(b) the vapor pressure is higher. Ranged against this, however, is the fact that smaller jars will heat up more quickly.<br>
As Andy has suggested, these are matters that would most efficiently be investigated by a series of tests using real containers and fluid, and perhaps some of us at SPNHC could begin designing such tests and looking for a suitably creditable firm or agency
(such as Underwriters' Laboratories) to stage and observe them.<br>
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<div style="font-family:Tahoma; font-size:13px"><b>Paul Callomon</b><br>
<i>Collection Manager, Malacology, Invertebrate Paleontology and General Invertebrates</i><br>
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<font face="Verdana"><b>Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, Philadelphia</b></font><br>
<i>callomon@ansp.org Tel 215-405-5096 - Fax 215-299-1170</i><br>
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