I am not sure what to make of that last picture.
Posted on 02/09/2011 2:54:05 AM PST by crosslink
Edited on 02/09/2011 6:51:12 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
Several sources familiar with the ongoing investigation tell WTOP fire and police investigators believe the radiator in Turton's 2008 BMW X5 was punctured when it rolled into a workbench. The halogen headlights, which emit a bluish light and illuminate the road better than conventional headlights, stayed on after the radiator was punctured.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Spray it out. The water in the mixture defractionates out as a precipitate called condensation. The remaining spray is pure e-glycol. It has a LOWER ignition temperature than a pool of e-glycol dissolved in water.
Oh, I hear that loud and clear. I’ve been following Project Gunwalker too. Time to shut that bunch of criminals down. Past time.
It’s still an incredible stretch to believe it could ignite. Ever spilled anti-freeze on hot exhaust headers on a running engine with an exhaust leak? I have and so have millions of other people and not one flash of flame.
“I have and so have millions of other people and not one flash of flame.”
It’s almost as if someone thought of safety issues when the need for a better-than-water coolant was recognized.
The textbooks say this stuff burns. There are videos on the net showing it burn. It's banned at racetracks because it burns.
Let me say this about that ~ if evidence that it burns is not enough, go try it yourself ~
“The water in the mixture defractionates out as a precipitate called condensation.”
I’m not sure that that step is needed. Could be just putting flame on the fresh mist will ignite it. I can’t try it right here, though.
I still doubt that this is really what happened. If it did, glycol/water fires in car crashes would be common, and fire departments would have a protocol for handling it.
Could be they are common but merely mistaken for more common oil fires.
And you think an aerosol spray from a radiator is more efficient at that than the instantaneous evaporation of an exhaust manifold? Or that a sealed headlamp is a better ignition source than hot exhaust gas spitting out glowing bits of carbon? LOL I don't think so.
I went back to post 21 (there is a photo of the 08 BMW suv). There is NOT a lot of grillwork opennings on the front end. it makes we wonder (for the radiator to be punctured) that some very apparent body (front end) damage would have to be done...and even I’d the scenario of ‘she hit something the night before’ because she had been drinking, wouldn’t she have re-examined the damage (as in, did I do all that?) Before she got in the car?
Also, two things about the fire itself. One, it originally (per the neighbor who called 911) the flames reached the top level (from the one level garage) of the three story dwelling; and two, the Fire Department didn’t know there was a body in the BMW until the brought down the flames (heavy smoke). Are those consistent with the “antifreeze” component as propellant? I’m just asking, because I really don’t know (and find this all very odd/not right).
Great find I am out today review tonight. Thanks
Leaky radiators are a big problem. My 1971 Camero used to leak on my garage floor every time I pulled into the garage.
Had the car for many years and was always putting coolant in it. Never had a fire, even when it backfired out the carb, which was often.
The NFPA rates flammability on a scale 0-4
0 = minimal
1 = slight
2 = moderate
3 = serious
4 = severe
They rate pure e-glycol a 1
It certainly will ignite, I just did it awhile back with some newspaper as a wicking material.
I also read that heating pure e-glycol can produce vapors that can flash back to a flame source, but even then no mention of explosion.
Here is a real life coolant car fire - still, no explosion.
http://www.croberts.com/coolant.htm
I also spoke with a Police friend of mine with 25 years tenure. He said garages actually blow up more than people think. He said it's almost always the same thing - improperly stored gasoline in a garage that has a gas water heater in it. I asked him about coolant fires, he said they are a common event along side the road when a car is boiling off it's coolant, but he never heard of one in a garage. So, in summary I am 100% convinced you can start a nasty fire with e-glycol, I am just not sure how the circumstances you describe in the over-night scenario could cause an explosion event violent enough to knock someone out.
Its hard to tell from the first photo (BMW on wrecker) that the sun roof looks intact? And the last photo, wow. It was so bright (flames) that now I wonder if Turton was doubled over, as a seated form would have been noticed? That is just too creepy.
okey dokey I have my new and improved tin foil hat on
REVISED
They believe the victim was “stricken and unconscious” before the fire started, yet there were no signs trauma, leading the first responders to suspect an “unknown medical condition”.
If you wanted to cover up a perfect murder...
Sneak into the garage some time during the night. Puncture the radiator, letting the coolant drip onto a 6 inch stack of newspaper.
Ambush the victim with a hypo of succinylcholine. Gently place victim in front seat, start car. Open garage door, back part of the way out. Put car in park. Walk to the front of the car. Touch your zippo to the edge of the soaked newspaper. Disappear down the alley to the rear along the fence.
With burns on the body, can’t find a needle mark. No blunt force trauma. No “unnatural accelerants” found at the scene. Fast and hot burn. No explosions. Why open the door and move the car part of the way out? Because for a fast and hot burn you need a lot of oxygen. If the door were closed, the fire would burn more slowly and have less of a chance of destroying the evidence.
I can vouch that newspaper soaked in e-glycol burns rather fierce and would likely ignite everything else under the hood fairly quickly.
Just say’in.
“I can vouch that newspaper soaked in e-glycol burns rather fierce “
Wick-ed cool!
You can even get massive explosions with nothing but dust from grains of wheat mixed with air.
I proposed a way for "drying out" the ethylene glycol sprayed out of the radiator several hours earlier when she pulled into the garage and ran into a work bench.
Remember e-glycol evaporates at a higher temperature than water, and freezes at a lower temperature than water. That's why it's added to the water.
If you spray the anti-freeze out through tiny holes in the radiator you create a great deal of mechanical separation of the solution that makes it much easier for the water and e-glycol to go their merry ways ~ the water into a condensate on cold metal automobile structures and parts ~ e-glycol into a cold spray drifting around through the unventilated garage.
Eventually you get a very nice e-glycol and air mixture.
I think ATF prefers an electrical detonation here hence the targeting of the lightbulbs. I think the heating coil on the catalytic converter is more likely since it tokes up to about 1300 degrees F.
Now you can start a fire most anywhere with that!
It's possible ATF never looked at the catalytic converter not realizing that BMW has had a modified device in use for many years.
Now, about when the cat starts heating up or the lights turn on? The second the doors open will turn on the lights. Still she managed to get into the car. That's where I rule out the lights. If there was going to be an electrical detonation it would have happened immediately ~ which is obviously not the case.
Yeah a converter could absolutely start a fire, but would take substantially longer to get hot.
BMW "solved the problem" by adding an electric heating coil that tokes it up to operating temperature in seconds.
Operating temperature is about 1300 degrees F.
Again, I'm postulating that this particular BMW had the new, improved, high efficiency catalytic convertor.
I've also found a way to explain why she's in a car with the garage doors still locked ~ that's the use of a remote keyless starter array! There's a lot of flexibility in the way they can be set up (depending on brand and cost), so maybe 1 button opens the windows and 2 buttons starts the engine, or vice versa, or maybe just proximity to the "fob" is enough for the system to decide to start the engine.
The keyless starter system is standard with this vehicle.
The fact that it's sitting on the back end of the car gives some credence to the speculation that the door was hit from inside with the car backing out. I haven't seen the door, or pieces of it, in any picture but I suspect the firemen pulled it out of their way as soon as they got there.
Ethylene Glycol vapor explosion limits in air
Lower explosion limit = 3.2 percent by volume
Upper explosion limit = unknown
Flash point 231 degrees Farenheit
According to this text if you could get up to 3.2% e-glycol vapor to air mixture and a 231 degree heat source you might have a “boom”.
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