Any idea what the hell is going on here:
http://forums.sailinganarchy.com/index.php?/topic/210009-bulker-leaving-vancouver-harbour/
Looks like something blew a hatch off???
Yes. Grain dust is explosive as well as deadly if you have a reaction to inhaling it.
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Indeed. Flammable dust is dangerous stuff. This makes me wonder: What is done on ships to mitigate the dust explosion risk? You gas tankers to keep them from exploding, but what about dry bulk carriers?
I went pretty far down the rabbit hole while researching an idea for for a fuel-air munition with powdered metal. Given the frequency and severity of dust explosions, I find it slightly odd that so few are captured on camera. Most of what you can dig up on YT is either demonstrations or loading chute primaries, while the site leveling secondaries seldom turn up, even in security footage.
Here’s one of my favorites. While not really an explosion, it’s still quite a spectacle, and serves to demonstrate the latent energy in a dust cloud:
I recall back in the mid 70s, there were several grain elevator explosions.
We had pieces of the grain elevator land on the back deck of the mudboat I was on in Galveston. We were about a 1/4 mile from the explosion.
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