Abstract
WHEN liquefied natural gas (LNG) is spilled onto water, a violent explosion may occur1, caused by the sudden release of energy stored in a superheated, metastable LNG phase. It is therefore termed a superheat-limit explosion (SLE)2,3. A SLE does not contain flames, but is very noisy. According to one theoretical estimate4, the explosion which can occur when LNG is spilled onto water is equivalent to 1/50 to 1/17 the explosion of a similar mass of TNT. Because the LNG would be spread over a much larger area, however, the force per unit area from such an explosion would apparently not be large.
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References
Burgess, D. S., Murphy, J. N., and Zabetakis, M. G., US Dept. of Interior, Bureau of Mines Report, S-4105 (February 1970).
Katz, D. L., Chem. Eng. Prog., 68, 68 (1972).
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Anderson, R. P., and Armstrong, D. R., Proc. Third LNG Conference (Washington, DC, 1972).
Nakanishi, E., and Reid, R. C., LNG-Water Interactions (Department of Chemical Engineering, MIT, June 1971).
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YANG, K. Explosive Interaction of Liquefied Natural Gas and Organic Liquids. Nature 243, 221–222 (1973). https://doi.org/10.1038/243221a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/243221a0
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