• Question: in your past has anything blown up?

    Asked by 274dagg45 to Dawn, James, Sarah, Sylvain, Tomas, Vaanu on 10 Nov 2016.
    • Photo: Dawn Gillies

      Dawn Gillies answered on 10 Nov 2016:

      I’ve had a system go on fire, but not blow up! I was working in a team to make a very high current circuit. It charged and discharged and one day it got left on charge overnight. So much current built up in the circuit that as soon as someone bumped it the next day it went up in flames! Thankfully nobody was hurt – we just had to rebuild our whole system from scratch with only a few days to our deadline!

    • Photo: Sarah Hampson

      Sarah Hampson answered on 10 Nov 2016:

      When I was doing a chemistry degree we had 1 thing blow up- someone put acid into the wrong bottle and it mixed with some chemicals already inside it. This 3kg bottle blew up, and its top part got stuck deep in the ceiling. Its lid is STILL stuck inside the building’s roof, 3 years later!

    • Photo: Sylvain Jamais

      Sylvain Jamais answered on 10 Nov 2016:

      I’ve had a few small fires and some air lines becoming loose and turning into an air-snake, but nothing more serious. Engineering can be dangerous, it is essential to plan, analyse the risks and put measures in please to avoid people getting hurt.

    • Photo: Vaanathi Sundaresan

      Vaanathi Sundaresan answered on 11 Nov 2016:

      We once had an accidental fire (due to worn down insulation in coil) and subsequent short circuit. Luckily there were no casualties but it took weeks to fix the problem.

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