Found a link to an mpg of a short video of a arc and firey failure of a transformer in a power substation. http://205.243.100.155/frames/mpg/XfrmBlast1.mpg

Wow!!,
Thanks for the pic, mate!.
Pretty impressive, any idea where this is or what size Xformer it is?.
Haven't seen anything like that, since we(the fire brigade) turned up at the Winslow sub-station(110kV)when it went on fire and we wondered how the h**l we were going to turn the power off, let alone put it out!.

[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 04-25-2003).]

To the best of my memory this was a Capacitor Bank fire.

Chris

Regardless of what "they" say, this was a flying-saucer crash in Oregon.

Proof is the trace of purple in the smoke cloud in the last few frames when the gammatron antimatter-containment orb ruptured.

Isn't the internet great? ;-)

probably somebodys 1 iron that was thrown out of anger got across the lines

got this back from one of my distribution tech friends after I sent this thread to him.

"Got the lowdown on that transformer fire. Ends up this was Florida Light and Power station. What happened (incredibly) was there was a phase to phase fault on the station bus and the protection wouldn't work because the fuse clip on the English Electric fuse was broken (a very common problem).

The fluid you see before the major fire is actually the insulating oil in the transformer because the arc actually burnt through the side of the transformer.

The next day FP&L technicians went out and checked all fuse clips, finding some 20% of all fuse clips broken. At present English Electric will not sell the fuse clips to any of their previous customers since they cannot
guarantee they will be installed correctly (they cost $4/pair) but will instead will sell the whole fuse holder (for $30)."

mbhydro:
Thanks for the additional information on this spectacular failure. It must have literally scared the $(^*$(*% out of the people who were fortunate (or unfortunate...?) to be eye witnesses . I'm curious about something...shortly after the insulating oil erupts from the transformer and ignites, there is a very bright flash and explosion, after which the "humming" stops. Can you identify (or speculate) what happened at this point in this event?

This is quite a piece of video...I've watched it more times than my wife has watched "Gone With the Wind" . Much more exciting...

Mike (mamills)

Great Video!

Here's some stills from it for the "Mpeg-challenged" out there:





(Mike, I think this is the blast that you are referring to)

Bill

ps > will probably move this into the photos submitted area.

Bill:
That's it!! Sounds almost like the whole top of the transformer blew off . (it really sounds great if you turn the volume on your speakers all the way up!)

Mike (mamills)

[This message has been edited by mamills (edited 05-21-2003).]

Found the same video on another website, themeterguy.com, Also found a couple of similarly neat high voltage problems. This link: http://www.themeterguy.com/photogallery/BoomTruckinPowerLines.wmv

is what happens when your sign crane or boom truck comes into contact with the primary lines on the pole line in front of your new building. I believe the diesel engine you hear idling in the background is the fire engine just standing back until the power gets shut off.

The next one is a Joslyn 3 pole air break switch opening up the bushings on a transfrmer or circuit breaker:
http://www.themeterguy.com/Joslyn.mpg

Enjoy.

Coreman:
Thanks for sharing these! I saw the m-peg of the air-break switch about two weeks ago. I passed by a large HL&P (now Centerpoint Energy) substation a couple of days ago and saw several of these switches in there.

Sure makes you think...

Mike (mamills)

Coreman:

Good Stuff!

Bill

The buzzing/growling that quit ~21 seconds into the mpeg probably resulted from a primary-voltage circuit breaker tripping that may have been miles away. Heated mineral oil can burn like gasoline, especially mixed with gammatron crystals.

Regardless of the detailed and elaborate “official” explanation, it was really another flying-saucer crash. Lately, in an attempt to add more believability, “sources” are starting to add “meteorite implosion” to their mysterious-incident repertoire. ;-) ;-) ;-)

Coreman,
That video is great.
Thanks for the link!.

Is just me or does anyone else see what looks like a water spray pattern from a large diameter hose, such as those used in the fire services? baout half way through the video you see what appears to be water coming thru the fire from the left to the right. Now I do not mean to pick on the fire service, as I was employed in that service for several years, but I would not put it past some fire companies to put water on this fire. The massive explosion follows the spray pattern. Anyone have any details as to what happened?

Bryan Haywood www.SAFTENG.net

I think that "mist cloud" is a cloud of vaporized oil from the transformer, probably when the pressure relief valve let go.

At least that would explain the ball of flame a split second later.

As to the loud bang and the humming coming to a sudden stop, I assumed that that was an expulsion fuse feeding the transformer primary...

At any rate, GREAT video!

"...water spray pattern from a LDH..."

Hi Bryan:
When I first saw this video, I thought the same thing. Then I thought...what firefighter would be crazy (or stupid) enough to get anywhere close to something like this, much less try to put water on it . Seems to me that any fire department would definitely be out-classed by an event such as this, and defer decision-making to the POCO.

Mike (mamills)

Mike, if you have the time, do a search for the term BLEVE. Of all the things firefighters have to watch out for...

Bjarney:
Out local fire department almost wound up in an up close and personal way with a Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion at a house fire about 5 years ago, out in the county. The geniuses who were renting this house had a propane gas cylinder INSIDE the house, in a corner of the living room, connected to two space heaters. En route to the fire, we heard (and saw) a tremendous explosion about 3 miles away. We found the remains of the cylinder half buried in the ground about 800 feet away from where the house once stood. It's a miracle that half of our department wasn't wiped out by this incident.

We used to have a fairly cavalier attitude about house fires. Not any more...

Mike (mamills)

It is indeed desirable to learn from near misses instead of serious incidents. (…and to be there to tell others about your own up-close-and-personal “events.”)

Bjarney,

What are we looking at here?
I remember seeing this before, but didn't know what it was about.

Bill

Looks to me like 4 guys in hazmat suits and 1 nonchalant fellow in shorts trying to get in the picture.

Bill, the wide variation in clothing looked a bit odd. ;-)

Yes, it looks like someone is over or under dressed

Bill

Probably 98% or the time the “pro-clo” isn’t needed, but it’s sort of a chicken-and-egg thing. They have to don the gear to increase their odds of being able to walk away from the sampling location.

On the African continent there’s a small valley where animals descend into, and die in their tracks. A rare set of deadly conditions routinely exist there. Local volcanic activity and peculiar geography funnel heavier-than-air CO2 into the valley, and lack of air currents concentrate CO2 in the area and animals drop dead, ignorant of the absence of oxygen.

Bjarney

Where exactly is that valley, I have a few people that I would gladly give first class airfare to so they could investigate this for themselves.

Bob

It was on a Nova-TV epsiode. I can't find the right search keywords to locate it now, but when I do I'll post it.

The valley was in Cameroon, in 1984 or 1985. Viva la legion!

i found all these videos a few days ago on themeterman.com.

what i'm asking myself is: Why wasnt the line the truck hit shut down? Doesnt there trip anything?

I live in germany, and 3 years ago on the other side of our street a big crane's metal chain touched a 3 phase 22kV line supplying our village. i was on the street with my bycilce and heard a lout buzz, and the power was gone (it was day, but i instantly called my mom and asked if we had power).

a few minutes later there was some wind, the chain touched the line again, short buzz, then quiet.


later when the energy suppliers craftsmen were there to repair the line, i asked why it buzzed again some time after the first time.
they said the line was shut down at the first buzz and was reconnected after 2 minutes to check if there was just a false alarm, big bird on a pole or sth., after the second flash the line then is finally shut down for local check.

why did the power flow constantly through the truck in the video?? is there no shutdown for these faults or didnt it work???

[This message has been edited by :andy: (edited 10-20-2003).]