There are numerous ways of starting fire with water. There’s one that consists in placing the water in a transparent plastic sheet and holding it in the air fixed to a structure, you will see the burning effect on the ground if you get plenty of sun, so be careful!
My father served on steam powered ships in WWII. He explained to me difference between live steam and superheated steam. They hunted leaks with toilet paper on a broomstick.
My dad was telling me that if the main steam line burst in the boiler room of the aircraft carrier they say you had something like 12 seconds (it's been decades since he told me this so it could be way off, but it wasn't much). Soberiung.
Hello, i work in a factory with HP steam, 80 bar and 500c. We still look for leaks like that if we suspect anything! FLIR guns are nice but aren't always useful depending on where the leak is!
@@Silasssssssss you’re a brave man. I’ve heard horror stories of steam valves exploding when they are turned for repairs and/or maintenance. I have worked on tons of low and some medium pressure steam. You can keep that high pressure crap.
Yeah, steam can be scary. I heard a story about it at a power plant I toured. We had to walk on a different tour route, because the normal route went past an area with steam pipes. He said that the week before, someone working in the plant got seriously burned when they walked into a steam leak. He also said that he was on duty when a steam pipe burst, and that the temperature in that warehouse-sized building went up about 20 degrees F in 10 seconds. Luckily no one was injured that time, just shook up.
Any high energy system like that involving high steam pressure is scary indeed. Leaks are just one hazard. The other is that a high pressure system is essentially a bomb you're slowly extracting energy to do work from, but if someones makes a mistake, you get all the energy at once and you're having a very bad day.
Some of the WW2 tales are scary, as they were using superheated steam turbines, and being at war, there was plenty of shells flying about to damage those steam lines.
@@CED99 *steam turbines. To superheat something is to heat it past the temperature at which a change of state occurs at a given ambient pressure. Steam can be superheated at 101 Celsius at atmospheric pressure and 50 Celsius in a vacuum. Water can also exist at 150 Celsius without boiling if the pressure is high enough. Stop saying superheated steam like it’s scarier than regular steam. All steam will fucking kill you. The temperature isn’t what gets you. It’s the pressure. Pinhole leaks in a high pressure lines can literally cut you in half regardless of the temperature.
@@jman0870 Superheated is more dangerous than saturated steam, mostly because a leak is invisible at the source, in industrial facilities, you may not hear a leak, before walking into it. Also, with steam, pressure dictates the temperature and vice versa.
Glad this was put into my recommended. I'm a software engineer, and youtube thinks I wanna watch this science video. and they're correct. they're very correct.
Pressurized super heated steam on ships, like WWII war ships, was said to be able to cut a man in half nearly instantly if he passed in front of a leaking pipe. Very scary how much thermal/kinetic energy steam has.
this is how we spot superheated steam leak in a power plant, we put a cloth at the end of a broom handle and we try to put it in front of the leak. If the cloth is ejected while burning, you spoted the leak. Also, this is why it is totally forbidden to run whatever the reason, if you run through it it will cut you in half.
In most thermal electric plants the steam supplied to the turbine is usually at 1000 DegF superheated steam.The pressure can vary with design but can go higher than 3200 psi in a supercritical boiler. Your demonstration is the basic concept of how these plants heat that steam to such high temperatures. Simple enough, I might use this to show my plant operations trainees.
The steam system gauges I calibrated for the carriers in the Navy were 10k psi. I didn't like to calibrate the gauges much less work on the systems. Didn't much care for holding a mechanical tach in my hand spinning 50k rpm either. Just a little unnerving..............
My brother excellent comment, if you show your trainees a demonstration if possible and use a fresh piece of raw fish in front of the superheated steam they will remember the flesh searing off the fish in a blink of an eye.i cook for a living have 3 large steamers I can cook 80 Chicken breasts in about 7 minutes flat.
Leak in a boiler plant. We had to reach around inside the pipe assemblies to figure out where the leak was. Used a broomstick to probe around. We heard a "THWAK!" and the tip of the broomstick was gone. Leak found. Called the professionals and clocked out.
In the Navy we used 1250 psi steam at 1000 degrees to power our propulsion plants. Any suspected leak was searched for using the business end of a broom. I never got to see one but did see several brooms that had been used in the past. Scary amount of energy in that steam.
I have worked at a few electrical generation plants, all use super heated steam at (at the plants I have worked in) at least 850 psig. You cannot take a chance on condensing any water droplets prior to the steam entering the turbine. It would be similar to throwing a steel ball into a plate glass window. As a result, during a first start up of a new plant, plastic rods used to be given out to wave in front of you when you traveled past any of the high pressure steam lines. You cant see it, may not hear it, but a small pinhole leak would literally cut you in half.
i heard stories of guys on navy ships checking for steam leaks with a broom as shown with super heated steam you cant see it so the fastest way for them to check for leaks back in the day was to wave a broom around and the steam was high enough pressure it would cut the straw off the end of the broom.
The technique was to put a piece of toilet paper on the end of a broomstick. My father described hunting SHS leaks. You could hear them but not se them, and they would cut flesh if you wandered into one.
My father explained to me that steam only has so much energy that it can provide but as you superheat the steam it gains energy that can be extracted as work.
The water at 20 bar is even more insane.If you have to choose between isolating the steam or the water (say a broken gauge glass), always choose the water cock.
@@dbmail545 Actually most of the energy isn't in the heat of the steam. The bulk of energy comes from the steam condensing back into water, which releases a boatload of energy. Super heating the steam does increase the energy in it, but it won't condensate that quick anymore.
@@lennertlaevaert8711 So counterintuitive until I consider it takes energy to vaporize; conversely, it must release energy while condensing. Evaporation: I cracked a plastic glasses lens with enamel reducer (?) cleaning off paint overspray. It was amazing how cold the lens was in a very short wipe.
I ran a steam locomotive for several years. Part of the training is a written test that includes a question that is also asked verbally when doing the practicals: "If the sight glass breaks, which valve do you close first, the top or the bottom?" Over the course of your first month of training, that question would be repeated a few times to make sure it was ingrained that the top valve gets closed. "The water will scald you but the steam can kill you" words I can still hear my instructor saying 30 years later. Thankfully I never had the experience of a broken sight glass.
Thank you for this, you've answered a question I've had for so long, which is if you could start a fire with hot enough water. I'm so happy my hypothesis was correct and that you can, but really need to get rid of all the non-vaporized water. Awesome video, thanks for it.
Just a tiny tip from someone who has to strike an ocy/acet torch all the time, you're holding the striker a bit wrong. The best way I've found is to have your thumb on the moving leg of the striker. This lets you push downwards and sideways at the same time. Makes striking a bit more consistent. Loved the video!
USN, retired steam plant propulsion engineer. Served on several 600# and 1200# steam ships in the propulsion space. A pinhole leak cannot be seen. A pinhole leak can amputate, and cauterize, a limb. However, it can be found due to the increase in that area temperature zone. We were taught to use a broomstick to find the leak. The civilians say 15 psig steam is high pressure, HAHAHAHAHAHA
Thermodynamics/Systems and Thermal Fluids Engineer. Work at/on critical and super-critical power production facilities. Also research in the use of ultra-critical systems for power production. We don't use brooms to look for leaks. We don't have leaks. USN Swabees say 1200 psi steam is high pressure! That's so funny that I can not laugh.
I’d go with the spaghetti steam- as it only hits one side of your hand- as well as being able to pull your hand back a good distance to reduce the perceived temp
When I was in the US Navy I served aboard an aircraft carrier. I was assigned to 1 of the ships 4 boiler rooms. Each boiler room had 2 boilers. These boilers operated at 600psi and the steam was superheated to 1200F. The ships 8 boilers drove 4 steam turbine main engines enabling this ship to make 30 knots. And this was an old ship, 1942. The newer ships no doubt put it to shame. !
just curious, why is that? is it because steam is less dense than water, and therefore its molecules do not undergo collisions as frequently and vigorously compared to liquid water molecules?
Not sure if this is just genuinely wrong because I was literally just told it. Doesn't steam have the same temperature as water at 100°C but that means that more energy is not being put into breaking bonds because it's a gas now so it could burn you even more because of that?
@@hhhhhhhhhhhhhnhhhhhhh Steam exiting the boiling water will have the energy of 100 degrees C of heat + heat of vaporization in it. Technically the steam has more energy to release than the boiling water does in the pot - the difference here is there is less steam to transfer energy to your hand than water in the pot if you submerged your hand. Boiling water doesn't break any bonds, it just excites the particles enough to escape as a gas. Steam will burn you more as it transfers the heat of vaporization to your hand as it condenses back into a liquid (if you're comparing the same amount of steam vs liquid water)
It's a combintation of specific heat capacity, and currents/motion. Liquids have a higher heat capacity, so hold more thermal energy per volume unit that can be transferred to another material (or your hand) However, if the gas or liquid is in motion, then they both dramatically increase their ability to transfer heat. Try this - Fill a sink with hot water (just hot enough for you to be able to tolerate) and submurge you hand. Keep it still. After a few seconds the water surrounding your hand settles to a slightly lower temperature, and it does not feel too bad. Now move your hand in the water... Your hand comes into contact with fresh, hotter water. It feels much hotter.
I worked in a lumber sawmill when in University. The "head rig" (main 3 story band saw) ran on steam. There was a steam powered log flipper the sawyer used to manipulate logs while cutting them up. It could lift 15 to 20 tons straight up in the air like it was not even there. That steam is amazing stuff.
I have been a cook in different restaurants for more years than I care to admit most places I've worked had pasta cookers at 200 to 225 f I have gone into the water bare handed many times but only for less than 2 or 3 seconds, now a steamer is a different animal I've seen it rip skin off in a blink of an eye, now keep in mind folks, I've been in a fire in a restaurant before, my shoes on fire, heat in a commercial kitchen must be respected
From the blank color with text at the beginning I would have thought this would be really scuffed with low camera quality and no talking but I was very wrong. Great video!
In power plants when they have a steam leak... heat source gets disconnected and then area evacuated until there is no possibility of the live steam still being there. You can be cooked in half.
Best hotdog I've ever had was cooked in a superheated steamer. I can't wait to see if I can make my home made charcoal into activated charcoal using this method.
You're 50% correct when you say that the reason the steam was only 70 degrees was because it was mixing with the air. The other 50% was that the copper piping itself was siphoning off heat LONG before the steam reached the air. It should be noted that, had you used stainless steel piping, the temperature of the steam would have been much hotter in the air.
@@yourdad9168 Right. This is why we cool electronics using this method: because the heat transfer is "negligible" and not the best method of heat transfer in existence. Idiot. 😑 "It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it." -Maurice Switzer
On Navy aircraft carriers that was one of the first things we learned about. There are some real horror stories from pipes bursting. And with the superheated steam you may not even realize it until it's too late.
My grandad worked on big ships in WW2,,he told me about ships powered with super heated steam, he said you would get a leak, you would hear a hiss but you can’t see anything, it could chop your arm off.
Fun steam story: My dad was in the Navy in the early 80s, on a CV. They use steam to assist the jets takeoff and, at some point, one of the steam lines burst. This leak started a fire on a modern military ship. That’s how hot steam can be!
I'd also say that the water vapor will transfer even more energy to your hand than water because when it condenses on the hand it releases much more energy than just the thermal energy.
You'd be putting your hand in a substantially higher density of heat with a substantially higher thermal conductivity by dipping it in the water. 0.660W/m*K vs 0.024W/m*K and 1cal vs 0.48cal. Thats 27x higher conductivity and 2x the density.
Another father story here. My dad was a pipe fitter for nearly twenty years and countless countless days he'd come home with a gaunt look and some bad steam stories whether it be hospitals or breweries or the like. Steam is far more volatile and carries far more energy than I really considered before hearing some of these, and third degree burns are near instant. Careful!!
The steam will be hotter, but the water will have a higher energy density and that energy is what causes the damage by denaturing the proteins in your hand. Energy transfer into your hand will be higher in the water at atmospheric pressure. Super heated steam can be more dangerous, but not in the situation described.
@@blessedthistle9702 that is not what the question was. This scenario involved an open pot at atmospheric pressure. In order to change the answer, you would have to change the question.
I see everyone commenting below that you can't see a leak in the system and disposable objects are sacrificed to find them. But what about when the leaked steam gets further away from the source? Do you start to see condensation 10 or 20 feet from the source? Also are there no visible thermal layers/breaks in the air? Is there zero diffraction of light or lasers?
When I was in the navy I heard the stories about how they would use a broom to scan high pressure steam pipes to find leaks when the straws in the broom are cut.
Super heated steam was used during 1950's in Texas by US servicmen to run used fuel oil furnace on water line. Oil used to preheat fire pot and S.S. coil tubing + water to 1500 degrees. T fitting and extra valves mounted. When up to temperature, oil valve shut off. The resulting hydrogen and oxygen torch flame continues furnace running. 90 lbs pressure + 90lbs water lines with dual pumps and central motor with blower. U.S. patent application filed, but only resulted in final printing of 50% increase in efficiency with ordinary steam as only allowed to public. ( The change of high pressure to AMBIANT through tiny spray nozzel allowed for extreme vibration of vapor molecules that separated to gases,- at a much LOWER unusual high temperature. ) A much smaller demonstrator was built and shown to Senater in large wooden box with fire brick chamber and steel ring with holes- like coleman stove. Units have to be restarted on fuel oil.
That's deceptive of course I hand over boiling spaghetti pot is going to be fine with surrounding cooler air is infusing at that point mixing the temperatures so it's less hot
That’s how we used to find leaks in the turbine hall of the power station I worked at, we used thermal imaging to look in front of us but the old tried and tested paper on a pole trick worked 100% of the time.
awesome video about super heated steam. its just funny @5:27 when you are showing that it is so hot that it can light paper on fire, there is a couple stacks of books right in frame lol
Yes, as the title suggests what you’re doing is literally superheating the steam. The steam is boiling from the water at 212° (lets just say were at atmospheric pressure 29.92 Hg/ 14.696 psia) is also at 212°, and as soon as it rises from the water and comes into contact with the air it instantly starts to cool off below the saturation point of 212˚ and condense, which is why you can actually see it with your eyes. 212° is water’s saturation point, where if it is cooled off it will stay a liquid and begin to lose sensible heat (subcooling), and if it is heated it will begin to boil off, but stay the same temperature of 212˚ until all of the water is completely boiled and the steam begins to gain sensible heat. So by putting the burner under the coil, you super heated the steam away from its saturation point, so the steam coming out of the copper tubing is invisible because it is too hot for it to instantly condense right there. However, when it comes into contact with something that can absorb its heat content quickly (like the glass cup) it begins to condense on the spot.
My uncle worked on nuclear ships for the navy. Superheated steam. He said that people would hear a leak and go to feel with their hands to find the hole. All their fingers would be cut off and cauterized instantly. Scary stuff.
Nuclear ships do not have superheat. The water is boiled by running water over fuel rods the transfer to a non radioactive water using a heat exchanger called a steam generator. The steam is all saturated.
As an ex power station operator, working with steam for 38 years, I know all about superheated steam. . . It's the stuff that you *_CAN'T_* see that will burn you badly. . . Or in some cases of EXTREMELY hot and high-pressure steam, it will *CUT YOU IN HALF* and you can't see it!
The answer to the initial question would still be, putting your hand in the water. Because when you normally boil water, there isn't a second heating stage for the water vapor to turn into proper steam.
thats actually what we do in power plants. the water gets turned into steam by burning some kind of fossile fuel. its then channeled through many thin pipes who are located in the burn chamber. so the steam can absorb the remaining heat from the fumes. the hotter the steam, the more power you get on your turbines :) fun fact: the 850 degree steam is actually "cooling" the pipes and prevents them from melting due to the heat of the fire/fumes
The steam is actually carrying the heat from the red hot tubing onto the paper. Had you only used a flow of air, the paper would have been burnt exactly the same.
Yeah really he was using air pressure from the boiling water to move heat from the 900° red hot pipe the steam wasn't actually doing the heating or burning.
I think this is the same principles used by bakers with steam injected ovens, to use a fluid with great thermal capacity than normal air to cause a more even maillard reaction (which can only happen above water's boiling point) to happen on the surface of bread
As an italia, I speak from experience (at least a thousand pasta-based meals), keeping your bare hand relatively near boiling water is actually pretty sustaibalbe for a bunch of seconds, however throwing stuff inside the water can be much more painful just because of the tiny droplets of boiling water. So sticking even your pinky inside it would be terrible.
"water can make fire" - Joshua Bollnger, master of gas
There are numerous ways of starting fire with water. There’s one that consists in placing the water in a transparent plastic sheet and holding it in the air fixed to a structure, you will see the burning effect on the ground if you get plenty of sun, so be careful!
@@ProudMurican_PVT-GR137 so a makeshift magnefier?
@@frostyiv1509 correctamundo brother
to be fair, he used a very hot fire to make a more invisible concentrated heat, and the paper and wood made fire, seems interesting.
@@VKURDR right. he redirected the flames BTUs
My father served on steam powered ships in WWII. He explained to me difference between live steam and superheated steam. They hunted leaks with toilet paper on a broomstick.
My dad was telling me that if the main steam line burst in the boiler room of the aircraft carrier they say you had something like 12 seconds (it's been decades since he told me this so it could be way off, but it wasn't much). Soberiung.
Hello, i work in a factory with HP steam, 80 bar and 500c. We still look for leaks like that if we suspect anything! FLIR guns are nice but aren't always useful depending on where the leak is!
@@Silasssssssss you’re a brave man. I’ve heard horror stories of steam valves exploding when they are turned for repairs and/or maintenance. I have worked on tons of low and some medium pressure steam. You can keep that high pressure crap.
Yeah, steam can be scary. I heard a story about it at a power plant I toured. We had to walk on a different tour route, because the normal route went past an area with steam pipes. He said that the week before, someone working in the plant got seriously burned when they walked into a steam leak. He also said that he was on duty when a steam pipe burst, and that the temperature in that warehouse-sized building went up about 20 degrees F in 10 seconds. Luckily no one was injured that time, just shook up.
Any high energy system like that involving high steam pressure is scary indeed. Leaks are just one hazard. The other is that a high pressure system is essentially a bomb you're slowly extracting energy to do work from, but if someones makes a mistake, you get all the energy at once and you're having a very bad day.
@@roblangada4516 best description of a steam boiler i ever heard👍👍
Some of the WW2 tales are scary, as they were using superheated steam turbines, and being at war, there was plenty of shells flying about to damage those steam lines.
@@CED99 *steam turbines. To superheat something is to heat it past the temperature at which a change of state occurs at a given ambient pressure. Steam can be superheated at 101 Celsius at atmospheric pressure and 50 Celsius in a vacuum. Water can also exist at 150 Celsius without boiling if the pressure is high enough. Stop saying superheated steam like it’s scarier than regular steam. All steam will fucking kill you. The temperature isn’t what gets you. It’s the pressure. Pinhole leaks in a high pressure lines can literally cut you in half regardless of the temperature.
@@jman0870
Superheated is more dangerous than saturated steam, mostly because a leak is invisible at the source, in industrial facilities, you may not hear a leak, before walking into it.
Also, with steam, pressure dictates the temperature and vice versa.
Glad this was put into my recommended. I'm a software engineer, and youtube thinks I wanna watch this science video.
and they're correct. they're very correct.
software engineer, how embarassing
@@windowsxseven what is wrong with you?
@@windowsxsevenyoutube commenter, how embarassing
@@tuffdufroggin that goes both ways
@@windowsxseven unemployed how embarrassing
I always knew this dihydrogen monoxide was a dangerous chemical, but this demostration take my fears of this compound to a new level..
Think of any dead person... Got one? That person consumed dihydrogen monoxide within 3 days of their death. Guaranteed.
Coincidence?
@@williamdowling7718 oh my god, dihydrogen monoxide should be banned
I actually bought this matter to our mayor about two months ago he assured me that it will be banned, stay thirsty junkies.
Iam working in a themal power plant as a boiler operator.. You are explained about SH steam 💨 so well... 👏👏👏👍
Pressurized super heated steam on ships, like WWII war ships, was said to be able to cut a man in half nearly instantly if he passed in front of a leaking pipe. Very scary how much thermal/kinetic energy steam has.
That was what my dad told me about those steam turbine powered ships that used SHS.
Yeah, and the leaks were invisible because the steam hasn't had a chance to chill and condense into visible vapor.
They haven't gotten rid of the steam driven catapults completely yet.
Not just cut, but cut cleanly because it cauterized at the same time it cut. Like something out of a cartoon where someone just falls into two pieces.
It will not cut a person in half, that is a fairy tale, on the other hand you may very well get scolded to death.
this is how we spot superheated steam leak in a power plant, we put a cloth at the end of a broom handle and we try to put it in front of the leak.
If the cloth is ejected while burning, you spoted the leak.
Also, this is why it is totally forbidden to run whatever the reason, if you run through it it will cut you in half.
I would like a video of fruit being thrown threw that.
@@SylvieTheBagel fruit? Do you mean the smoldering blob of plant matter on the wall?
@@heroslippy6666 remember stomp rockets? I have an idea...
My father served on steam turbine powered ships in WWII. That's exactly what he said. You couldn't see the leak but it would cut you in half.
Something capable of cutting you in half that you cant see?
thats terrific AF
In most thermal electric plants the steam supplied to the turbine is usually at 1000 DegF superheated steam.The pressure can vary with design but can go higher than 3200 psi in a supercritical boiler.
Your demonstration is the basic concept of how these plants heat that steam to such high temperatures. Simple enough, I might use this to show my plant operations trainees.
Called the professionals = boilermakers no not the Purdue mascot however that is a story in itself.
The steam system gauges I calibrated for the carriers in the Navy were 10k psi. I didn't like to calibrate the gauges much less work on the systems.
Didn't much care for holding a mechanical tach in my hand spinning 50k rpm either. Just a little unnerving..............
@@beebop9808 scary
My brother excellent comment, if you show your trainees a demonstration if possible and use a fresh piece of raw fish in front of the superheated steam they will remember the flesh searing off the fish in a blink of an eye.i cook for a living have 3 large steamers I can cook 80 Chicken breasts in about 7 minutes flat.
@@beebop9808 kinda like fusing a 50 pound unexploded munitions charge to destroy the munitions it can be a little unnerving
Leak in a boiler plant. We had to reach around inside the pipe assemblies to figure out where the leak was. Used a broomstick to probe around. We heard a "THWAK!" and the tip of the broomstick was gone. Leak found. Called the professionals and clocked out.
Why isnt a thermal camera used? Guess it would be a lot safer?
@@aniruthdinesh9156 because everything is hot? 🤦♂️
@@jman0870 The leaking steam would be hotter than ambient air.
@@aniruthdinesh9156 you’ve never used a thermal camera before, have you?
@@jman0870 nope
In the Navy we used 1250 psi steam at 1000 degrees to power our propulsion plants. Any suspected leak was searched for using the business end of a broom. I never got to see one but did see several brooms that had been used in the past. Scary amount of energy in that steam.
I also a navy
I have worked at a few electrical generation plants, all use super heated steam at (at the plants I have worked in) at least 850 psig. You cannot take a chance on condensing any water droplets prior to the steam entering the turbine. It would be similar to throwing a steel ball into a plate glass window. As a result, during a first start up of a new plant, plastic rods used to be given out to wave in front of you when you traveled past any of the high pressure steam lines. You cant see it, may not hear it, but a small pinhole leak would literally cut you in half.
i heard stories of guys on navy ships checking for steam leaks with a broom as shown with super heated steam you cant see it so the fastest way for them to check for leaks back in the day was to wave a broom around and the steam was high enough pressure it would cut the straw off the end of the broom.
The technique was to put a piece of toilet paper on the end of a broomstick. My father described hunting SHS leaks. You could hear them but not se them, and they would cut flesh if you wandered into one.
Good efforts, good experiment, good explanation, good tone of voice.
10/10, one of the best science video seen in a while.
Glad you liked it!
Having been steam-burned, it's absolutely awful and it happens so, so fast.
Steam has so much heat capacity, superheated steam will melt you so fast.
Love this example!
I work with high pressure steam daily, around 20bars, the energy it holds is insane :D
My father explained to me that steam only has so much energy that it can provide but as you superheat the steam it gains energy that can be extracted as work.
The water at 20 bar is even more insane.If you have to choose between isolating the steam or the water (say a broken gauge glass), always choose the water cock.
@@dbmail545 Actually most of the energy isn't in the heat of the steam. The bulk of energy comes from the steam condensing back into water, which releases a boatload of energy. Super heating the steam does increase the energy in it, but it won't condensate that quick anymore.
@@lennertlaevaert8711 So counterintuitive until I consider it takes energy to vaporize; conversely, it must release energy while condensing.
Evaporation: I cracked a plastic glasses lens with enamel reducer (?) cleaning off paint overspray. It was amazing how cold the lens was in a very short wipe.
I love every single bit of this demonstration.
I ran a steam locomotive for several years. Part of the training is a written test that includes a question that is also asked verbally when doing the practicals: "If the sight glass breaks, which valve do you close first, the top or the bottom?" Over the course of your first month of training, that question would be repeated a few times to make sure it was ingrained that the top valve gets closed. "The water will scald you but the steam can kill you" words I can still hear my instructor saying 30 years later. Thankfully I never had the experience of a broken sight glass.
Great video, as an engineering student, this explains how steam can be fundamental to so many engineering applications.
A bery simple and elegant introduction to the subject!
I think the best option would be to KEEP YOUR HANDS AWAY FROM THE BOILING HOT WATER, and just let whatever is in there cook
Lmao yep
What if you're trying to cook hands? 👀
@@adhmbcx cook them via molotov
Candy maker here, molten sugar is way worse than boiling water, sticks and burns.
@@freewilly1193 random crap here, damn that’s crazy.
Less chaotic than Explosions and Fire and easier to understand than Nile, I love this 💞
Thank you for this, you've answered a question I've had for so long, which is if you could start a fire with hot enough water. I'm so happy my hypothesis was correct and that you can, but really need to get rid of all the non-vaporized water. Awesome video, thanks for it.
Just a tiny tip from someone who has to strike an ocy/acet torch all the time, you're holding the striker a bit wrong. The best way I've found is to have your thumb on the moving leg of the striker. This lets you push downwards and sideways at the same time. Makes striking a bit more consistent. Loved the video!
Agreed. Oxy acetylene torch all the time as well.
Same
Ask any plumber... No, wait -- hardly any have used a torch ever, or not in the past 20 years!
¯\_ಠ_ಠ_/¯
USN, retired steam plant propulsion engineer. Served on several 600# and 1200# steam ships in the propulsion space.
A pinhole leak cannot be seen. A pinhole leak can amputate, and cauterize, a limb. However, it can be found due to the increase in that area temperature zone. We were taught to use a broomstick to find the leak.
The civilians say 15 psig steam is high pressure, HAHAHAHAHAHA
How far away?
@@louf7178 How far away what? How far away can a superheated steam pinhole leak cut oneself? Good question, but I wasn't willing to find out!
@@torinbrown8196 Yes, that was the question. Thanks anyway.
Thermodynamics/Systems and Thermal Fluids Engineer. Work at/on critical and super-critical power production facilities. Also research in the use of
ultra-critical systems for power production. We don't use brooms to look for leaks. We don't have leaks.
USN Swabees say 1200 psi steam is high pressure! That's so funny that I can not laugh.
I’d go with the spaghetti steam- as it only hits one side of your hand- as well as being able to pull your hand back a good distance to reduce the perceived temp
When I was in the US Navy I served aboard an aircraft carrier.
I was assigned to 1 of the ships 4 boiler rooms. Each boiler
room had 2 boilers. These boilers operated at 600psi and
the steam was superheated to 1200F. The ships 8 boilers
drove 4 steam turbine main engines enabling this ship to
make 30 knots. And this was an old ship, 1942. The newer
ships no doubt put it to shame.
!
I thought his last name was Boilinger, and that would have just been too perfect wouldn't it universe?
Glad I'm nlt the only one who thought that.
i just watched a 6 minuete video of a chemist boiling water
in your reasoning wether its better to keep your hand above or in the water, you don't mention that water transfers heat way better than steam.
just curious, why is that? is it because steam is less dense than water, and therefore its molecules do not undergo collisions as frequently and vigorously compared to liquid water molecules?
@@luhdooce pretty much. In order to transfer heat you need to have mass. And in f/e 1 m3 you can put much more liquid water than steam :)
Not sure if this is just genuinely wrong because I was literally just told it. Doesn't steam have the same temperature as water at 100°C but that means that more energy is not being put into breaking bonds because it's a gas now so it could burn you even more because of that?
@@hhhhhhhhhhhhhnhhhhhhh Steam exiting the boiling water will have the energy of 100 degrees C of heat + heat of vaporization in it. Technically the steam has more energy to release than the boiling water does in the pot - the difference here is there is less steam to transfer energy to your hand than water in the pot if you submerged your hand. Boiling water doesn't break any bonds, it just excites the particles enough to escape as a gas. Steam will burn you more as it transfers the heat of vaporization to your hand as it condenses back into a liquid (if you're comparing the same amount of steam vs liquid water)
It's a combintation of specific heat capacity, and currents/motion.
Liquids have a higher heat capacity, so hold more thermal energy per volume unit that can be transferred to another material (or your hand)
However, if the gas or liquid is in motion, then they both dramatically increase their ability to transfer heat.
Try this - Fill a sink with hot water (just hot enough for you to be able to tolerate) and submurge you hand. Keep it still. After a few seconds the water surrounding your hand settles to a slightly lower temperature, and it does not feel too bad.
Now move your hand in the water... Your hand comes into contact with fresh, hotter water. It feels much hotter.
Looks like this video is getting blessed by the youtube algorithm
I completely understood this experiment... Made clear perfect sense to me, and was Very interesting 🤗😁 Thank You !!!
I worked in a lumber sawmill when in University. The "head rig" (main 3 story band saw) ran on steam. There was a steam powered log flipper the sawyer used to manipulate logs while cutting them up. It could lift 15 to 20 tons straight up in the air like it was not even there. That steam is amazing stuff.
I have been a cook in different restaurants for more years than I care to admit most places I've worked had pasta cookers at 200 to 225 f I have gone into the water bare handed many times but only for less than 2 or 3 seconds, now a steamer is a different animal I've seen it rip skin off in a blink of an eye, now keep in mind folks, I've been in a fire in a restaurant before, my shoes on fire, heat in a commercial kitchen must be respected
I studied thermodynamics and rankine power plants but this is the first demonstration that I saw about superheated.
From the blank color with text at the beginning I would have thought this would be really scuffed with low camera quality and no talking but I was very wrong. Great video!
In power plants when they have a steam leak... heat source gets disconnected and then area evacuated until there is no possibility of the live steam still being there. You can be cooked in half.
In a power plant you’re not only dealing with superheated steam but it’s also high pressure. Very dangerous.
@@deepsleep7822 Low pressure superheated steam only gets you while you're sleeping. It's sneaky like that.
Best hotdog I've ever had was cooked in a superheated steamer. I can't wait to see if I can make my home made charcoal into activated charcoal using this method.
You're 50% correct when you say that the reason the steam was only 70 degrees was because it was mixing with the air. The other 50% was that the copper piping itself was siphoning off heat LONG before the steam reached the air. It should be noted that, had you used stainless steel piping, the temperature of the steam would have been much hotter in the air.
Exactly 50%?? I think you'll find that the temperature transfer between steam/air and copper is negligible.
@@yourdad9168 Right. This is why we cool electronics using this method: because the heat transfer is "negligible" and not the best method of heat transfer in existence. Idiot. 😑
"It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it." -Maurice Switzer
On Navy aircraft carriers that was one of the first things we learned about. There are some real horror stories from pipes bursting. And with the superheated steam you may not even realize it until it's too late.
My grandad worked on big ships in WW2,,he told me about ships powered with super heated steam, he said you would get a leak, you would hear a hiss but you can’t see anything, it could chop your arm off.
Fun steam story: My dad was in the Navy in the early 80s, on a CV. They use steam to assist the jets takeoff and, at some point, one of the steam lines burst. This leak started a fire on a modern military ship. That’s how hot steam can be!
This is one of the coolest chem vids
I had once accidentally swung my hand over the nozzle of a rice cooker, I may say this gave me a nice burn for a few weeks.
And that's not even superheated steam.
I'd also say that the water vapor will transfer even more energy to your hand than water because when it condenses on the hand it releases much more energy than just the thermal energy.
You'd be putting your hand in a substantially higher density of heat with a substantially higher thermal conductivity by dipping it in the water. 0.660W/m*K vs 0.024W/m*K and 1cal vs 0.48cal. Thats 27x higher conductivity and 2x the density.
Another father story here. My dad was a pipe fitter for nearly twenty years and countless countless days he'd come home with a gaunt look and some bad steam stories whether it be hospitals or breweries or the like. Steam is far more volatile and carries far more energy than I really considered before hearing some of these, and third degree burns are near instant. Careful!!
It's not the temperature that is the problem, it is the enthalpy change released as heat as the steam condenses back to liquid.
..... of which no shits are given when you're laying in a burn unit.
outstanding demonstration!
Very interesting. I enjoyed and appreciate your demonstration!
The steam will be hotter, but the water will have a higher energy density and that energy is what causes the damage by denaturing the proteins in your hand. Energy transfer into your hand will be higher in the water at atmospheric pressure. Super heated steam can be more dangerous, but not in the situation described.
When water under pressure flashes to steam, there may be some excitement.
@@blessedthistle9702 that is not what the question was. This scenario involved an open pot at atmospheric pressure. In order to change the answer, you would have to change the question.
I see everyone commenting below that you can't see a leak in the system and disposable objects are sacrificed to find them. But what about when the leaked steam gets further away from the source? Do you start to see condensation 10 or 20 feet from the source? Also are there no visible thermal layers/breaks in the air? Is there zero diffraction of light or lasers?
It must greatly diffuse and is absorbed into the air, thus increasing the air's humidity.
Brilliant demonstration. Cheers.
When I was in the navy I heard the stories about how they would use a broom to scan high pressure steam pipes to find leaks when the straws in the broom are cut.
Super heated steam was used during 1950's in Texas by US servicmen to run used fuel oil furnace on water line. Oil used to preheat fire pot and S.S. coil tubing + water to 1500 degrees. T fitting and extra valves mounted. When up to temperature, oil valve shut off. The resulting hydrogen and oxygen torch flame continues furnace running. 90 lbs pressure + 90lbs water lines with dual pumps and central motor with blower. U.S. patent application filed, but only resulted in final printing of 50% increase in efficiency with ordinary steam as only allowed to public. ( The change of high pressure to AMBIANT through tiny spray nozzel allowed for extreme vibration of vapor molecules that separated to gases,- at a much LOWER unusual high temperature. ) A much smaller demonstrator was built and shown to Senater in large wooden box with fire brick chamber and steel ring with holes- like coleman stove. Units have to be restarted on fuel oil.
this man just lit a match with water. Now thats magic
More interesting than expected. Never thought I'd see water start a fire.
That was the coolest thing ever i've seen , science is wonderful, all the best .
That's deceptive of course I hand over boiling spaghetti pot is going to be fine with surrounding cooler air is infusing at that point mixing the temperatures so it's less hot
That’s how we used to find leaks in the turbine hall of the power station I worked at, we used thermal imaging to look in front of us but the old tried and tested paper on a pole trick worked 100% of the time.
awesome video about super heated steam. its just funny @5:27 when you are showing that it is so hot that it can light paper on fire, there is a couple stacks of books right in frame lol
Yes, as the title suggests what you’re doing is literally superheating the steam. The steam is boiling from the water at 212° (lets just say were at atmospheric pressure 29.92 Hg/ 14.696 psia) is also at 212°, and as soon as it rises from the water and comes into contact with the air it instantly starts to cool off below the saturation point of 212˚ and condense, which is why you can actually see it with your eyes. 212° is water’s saturation point, where if it is cooled off it will stay a liquid and begin to lose sensible heat (subcooling), and if it is heated it will begin to boil off, but stay the same temperature of 212˚ until all of the water is completely boiled and the steam begins to gain sensible heat. So by putting the burner under the coil, you super heated the steam away from its saturation point, so the steam coming out of the copper tubing is invisible because it is too hot for it to instantly condense right there. However, when it comes into contact with something that can absorb its heat content quickly (like the glass cup) it begins to condense on the spot.
Excellent video friend. Love to learn
This gives me a business idea about a sauna with a twist!!
Anyone who's ever made those lasagna in the oven knows steam is no joke
I love the video! I suppose this would go crazy viral in like a few years.
Friend: I need cigarette lighter. Do you have one?
Me: No, but i can light cigarette with steam
My uncle worked on nuclear ships for the navy. Superheated steam. He said that people would hear a leak and go to feel with their hands to find the hole. All their fingers would be cut off and cauterized instantly. Scary stuff.
Nuclear ships do not have superheat.
The water is boiled by running water over fuel rods the transfer to a non radioactive water using a heat exchanger called a steam generator.
The steam is all saturated.
As an ex power station operator, working with steam for 38 years, I know all about superheated steam. . .
It's the stuff that you *_CAN'T_* see that will burn you badly. . . Or in some cases of EXTREMELY hot and high-pressure steam, it will *CUT YOU IN HALF* and you can't see it!
Cool experiment! Would be cool to try this with refrigerant to demonstrate how AC cooling works
This needs to be mandatory demonstration for all syllabi of Physics III / Thermodynamics.
The answer to the initial question would still be, putting your hand in the water. Because when you normally boil water, there isn't a second heating stage for the water vapor to turn into proper steam.
Excellent demonstration!
Thank you!
Very good demo of super heated steam.
"I just made fire using water" - has a bunsen burner going...
thats actually what we do in power plants. the water gets turned into steam by burning some kind of fossile fuel. its then channeled through many thin pipes who are located in the burn chamber. so the steam can absorb the remaining heat from the fumes.
the hotter the steam, the more power you get on your turbines :)
fun fact: the 850 degree steam is actually "cooling" the pipes and prevents them from melting due to the heat of the fire/fumes
What is the limit to how hot this can't get, what about if you had twice as many coils and two burners?
The steam is actually carrying the heat from the red hot tubing onto the paper. Had you only used a flow of air, the paper would have been burnt exactly the same.
Yeah really he was using air pressure from the boiling water to move heat from the 900° red hot pipe the steam wasn't actually doing the heating or burning.
This was a great demonstration. I'd love to see some videos on viscosity measurement techniques.
I think this is the same principles used by bakers with steam injected ovens, to use a fluid with great thermal capacity than normal air to cause a more even maillard reaction (which can only happen above water's boiling point) to happen on the surface of bread
Back in the good old days a superheated steam line made a handy cigarette lighter.
this is something i didnt want to know but wanted to know
I just started fire using water... and, fire.
Awesome demonstration 👍.
Reading the comments, and seems like a key component of finding a leak is a broomstick specifically.
As a firefighter I can confirm steam burns are way worse than straight fire burns because of the humidity sticks to you.
This explain why the rumbling is so devastating
Unsure if its accurate, but I've seen it being referred to as Dry Steam as well in usage with steam piston engines
that was really interesting to see
You absolutely did not “start a fire using water” you started a fire using fire.
As an italia, I speak from experience (at least a thousand pasta-based meals), keeping your bare hand relatively near boiling water is actually pretty sustaibalbe for a bunch of seconds, however throwing stuff inside the water can be much more painful just because of the tiny droplets of boiling water. So sticking even your pinky inside it would be terrible.
Ma che stai a di'? 👳
@@fuji_films then try
How about pressure at the outlet and inside the boiling water
I never knew that. Very interesting indeed.👍☘️
How to start a fire using water:
Step 1- start a fire.
That is a really cool looking burner
It is called a Meker burner, especially used when you need a much hotter flame than your standard Bunsen burner.
Congratulations, you figured out how cars run on water.
You have an excellent voice for teaching
Thank you! 😃
My dad has worked in a boiler plant for as long as I can remember so he’s given me a fair few lectures about the dangers of superheated steam.
I often hold my hands over the steam to warn them up, I would never put my hand in the boiling water though, so....
So basically, the jedis were just using extremely advanced miniturized pressure washers to engage in battle, absolutely fascinating!
I did not intend to watch this all the way through but here I am lol
I'm glad you enjoyed it!