We spoke a couple of weeks ago about the tragedy at DeRidder, Louisiana, where three workers were killed by apparently an over-pressure in an atmospheric tank caused by steam.
We simplistically offered a solution consisting of opening the top of such tanks to never allow such pressure to build in the first place.
Now comes a report of a mill person being burned by hot stock when he manually opened a steam valve in an open top stock tank. Apparently a steam bubble developed, rose to the top and splashed him with hot stock. Our first solution suddenly looks juvenile.
Yet, this brought me back to a kitchen phenomenon I have seen. If you have ever cooked porridge, oats, cream of wheat or grits (depending on where you live), you no doubt have seen during the cooking process, occasional bubbles rise to the surface, and depending on their violence, splash your hot breakfast of choice all over the stove.
Is that not what was experienced in this newest example? What are scientific parameters involved? I assume they are the depth of the stock, its consistency (or perhaps in this case density), the distance from the stock surface to the sparger or steam inlet, steam temperature and perhaps velocity.
What am I missing? What else is needed to be known? Does anyone know of a table tying together these parameters?
Your help would be appreciated.
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Thanks in advance for your cooperation.
