...About those "imaginary" compressor explosions....

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67Dart273

67Dart273

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Occasionally this comes up and at least 3 people are always, "well I've never seen this how often does this happen?"

Answer? I don't know but I'd guess "it only takes once." A friend of mine recently gave me a typical cheap china import that had rusted through the tank. It had NOT exploded, but had rusted through and leaked and he caught it and realized what was going on

 
My father in law had a compressor out in an un attached shop/garage along time ago that he added an auxiliary 200 gallon tank to.
Long story short, the auto shut off failed. Blew up the aux tank, which blew out the wall which the roof fell down on his car and mashed it all up
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RAT ROD AL said:
My father in law had a compressor out in an un attached shop/garage along time ago that he added an auxiliary 200 gallon tank to.
Long story short, the auto shut off failed. Blew up the aux tank, which blew out the wall which the roof fell down on his car and mashed it all up
.
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Which is one of many reasons I always kill the power to my compressor when not in use.
 
Is there anyway to do a tank check at home other than a visual or "wait and see"? Ping test? Is there a life limit on tanks as there is on tires?
 
Ron_M said:
Is there anyway to do a tank check at home other than a visual or "wait and see"? Ping test? Is there a life limit on tanks as there is on tires?
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Perhaps an ultrasound inspection, but then to have real meaning the equipment and operator would need to be certified for safety inspection. There is likely something similar for boiler inspections.
Probably expensive.
Perhaps the best advice was given in the video, drain the tank often and set the compressor up outside of the shop.
Personally I drain the tank and leave the drain valve open after every use. And I have my air compressor in a separate utility building on the back side of the garage. My main intent when setting it up that way was to keep the noise from the compressor outside of the garage.
 
Thanks for posting, Del. It blows my mind that so many people are doubtful that compressors can ever explode like this. I've gone 'round and 'round with the guys at work and they always say it'll never happen and that if a tank ever deteriorates to that point, that it'll start with pinhole leaks and gradually fail. I say that's horse puckey. If you're lucky, that's what will happen, but you can't depend on it. And this video proves it.

ALWAYS drain your tank at the end of the day and leave it open to let any condensation that didn't get blown out evaporate. Keep that tank dry and rust-free. There's even some folks who install coolers between the compressor and tank to minimize condensation in the tank, which I plan to do.
 
Its a pressure vessel, that failure especially looks like a combination of metal thinning due to rust in one way, but also of fatigue.

Every time that compressor cycles, you are making fatigue get slightly worse. Like an airplane, I doubt it matters how long its pressurized for, but how many times. So if this was the primary failure mode, draining every day may not be the right move.

I personally don't use my compressor that often, and I drain it periodically when I use it a lot, especially in damp environments. Otherwise it's got a near perfect seal with a ball valve on the outlet and I leave it pressurized.

You can sonic check, but when do you decide it's dangerous?

Other thing is, there are millions of these things out there and how many blow up a year? 100?
 
goldduster318 said:
Its a pressure vessel, that failure especially looks like a combination of metal thinning due to rust in one way, but also of fatigue.

Every time that compressor cycles, you are making fatigue get slightly worse. Like an airplane, I doubt it matters how long its pressurized for, but how many times. So if this was the primary failure mode, draining every day may not be the right move.

I personally don't use my compressor that often, and I drain it periodically when I use it a lot, especially in damp environments. Otherwise it's got a near perfect seal with a ball valve on the outlet and I leave it pressurized.

You can sonic check, but when do you decide it's dangerous?

Other thing is, there are millions of these things out there and how many blow up a year? 100?
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Yep, and what do those folks at Ingersoll Rand know anyway? It's not like they make industrial air compressors, they're just dumbasses who want their customers to cause their tanks to prematurely fail so that they can buy more Ingersoll Rand tanks. That is, if they survive the explosion.
how-often-should-i-drain-my-tank
 
The tank should have a pop off valve and will only overpressurize if this is defeated, is stuck and the tank is pressurized all the time (fills 150psi at night and then 100F daytime comes around and now the tank prsssure is >180 psi. The tanks (eg. propane) are usually rated about 5x what the working pressure is for some safety margin. Co2 tanks are usually filled to ~700-1000 psi and are DOT rated to 3000 psi. Burst disk is at 1800-2500 psi so these are overbuilt. Anyone ever use a propane tank (or 2 in series) for compressor duty? 1000psi burst rating and typically not 30 users old. No drain valves.......
 
Sister company at a place I used to work had a 60 gallon back up tank plumbed in that never got drained. It blew up one night when the metal got too thin.
 
Use a water separator and drain the tank after every use...even still.
Chinese crap is Chinese crap. You seem any old ingersoll's and all the other brands I can't think of off the top of my head still Puttin quietly along working flawlessly 50 something years old
 
Small propane tanks (20 and 30 lb BBQ and RV) are DOT tanks and need to be certified every 10 years (recertification is 5 years). Other tanks like the propane tank at your house (the big ones) are ASTM tanks and do not need to be recertified.

My air compressor tank is 40 plus years old and does not leak. As I stated earlier, make sure the safety pop off valve is checked. That keeps the tank from exploding if the pressure switch fails. That and keeping the water drained should keep you safe.
 
A water separator needs to be between the compressor and the tank in order to be effective in preventing tank failure. It's not a simple addition.
 
Righty Tighty said:
Yep, and what do those folks at Ingersoll Rand know anyway? It's not like they make industrial air compressors, they're just dumbasses who want their customers to cause their tanks to prematurely fail so that they can buy more Ingersoll Rand tanks. That is, if they survive the explosion.
how-often-should-i-drain-my-tank
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If you use your compressor daily or own a shop that's one thing. Most of us have one in our garage that gets used fairly infrequently. If you're opening the drain and nothing comes out that would be an indication that you're not needing to drain it very often. Even when you drain it it doesn't get 100% of the water out, especially in the horizontal tanks. My vertical tank has kind of a bell shape at the bottom where the drain is and does a better job here.

Fatigue is a problem here as well, its undeniable. We don't even know if that tank was over pressured. Some info on this:
Pressure Vessel Fatigue

So how many fail a year? There's risks to everything but you can either be scared as hell of everything or assess the risk and act accordingly.
 
Righty Tighty said:
A water separator needs to be between the compressor and the tank in order to be effective in preventing tank failure. It's not a simple addition.
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You need an intercooler between the compressor and tank first, then a water separator. If not, the air is too hot, cools in the tank and water condenses (hot air holds more moisture than cold air). Best bet is an automatic moisture ejection valve.
 
goldduster318 said:
If you use your compressor daily or own a shop that's one thing. Most of us have one in our garage that gets used fairly infrequently. If you're opening the drain and nothing comes out that would be an indication that you're not needing to drain it very often. Even when you drain it it doesn't get 100% of the water out, especially in the horizontal tanks. My vertical tank has kind of a bell shape at the bottom where the drain is and does a better job here.

Fatigue is a problem here as well, its undeniable. We don't even know if that tank was over pressured. Some info on this:
Pressure Vessel Fatigue

So how many fail a year? There's risks to everything but you can either be scared as hell of everything or assess the risk and act accordingly.
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Sure, if you use your compressor to fill a bicycle tire every other week. I use my compressor almost every day, and usually it cycles many times. When I drain it at the end of the day, water comes out.

There’s a difference in being scared as hell of everything and taking precautions to minimize risk.
 
Righty Tighty said:
Sure, if you use your compressor to fill a bicycle tire every other week. I use my compressor almost every day, and usually it cycles many times. When I drain it at the end of the day, water comes out.

There’s a difference in being scared as hell of everything and taking precautions to minimize risk.
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Different use case. So for example, lets say I did a simple job like a brake job, use the impact gun, air ratchet, and because I live in the rust belt, some type of sanding equipment to get some rust off, the compressor cycles 3-4x through the whole thing and I drain it. Not even enough water that you can see it. So no need.

Another thing I did to my own is run an elbow and move the ball valve to where it is easier to reach. That volume of pipe could hold maybe 1 oz of water. Now I'm dealing with humidity in the tank which is unavoidable. Still going to rust eventually any way you look at it. You can see in the tank in the first video that it didn't blow up anywhere near the drain. That tank may not be able to be effectively drained in any case.

When I did my T56 swap I used the compressor for literally hours every day during a fairly humid late summer week, 5 days in a row. 5x the water came out of the water separator in the line to the hose than came out of the tank. Every fall I blow out my lawn sprinklers where it runs for 1.5-2 hours and I get around 0.5-1 oz of water out of it post doing that...when its outside where there is literally water being sprayed into the air.
 
I use my compressor almost daily and I drain it EVERY day when im done using it.
I work in the petroleum business and have seen all these safety videos over the years. The steam boiler explosions are pretty scary. We have a couple 500 hp steam boilers that are two storys high. I once saw a video of a boiler explosion and it shot like a missle through two buildings. Yes, all the way through both of them.

The correct way to test a pressure vessel would be a hydro test. Hydro tests are much safer because if it blows its much less violent than if it was air.
 
Happened to one of our local mopar guys, it exploded at the weld seam and took out garage wall.
 
Righty Tighty said:
Yep, and what do those folks at Ingersoll Rand know anyway? It's not like they make industrial air compressors, they're just dumbasses who want their customers to cause their tanks to prematurely fail so that they can buy more Ingersoll Rand tanks. That is, if they survive the explosion.
how-often-should-i-drain-my-tank
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WOW! Read the article below the ingersol warning the one about the tank drains- work up to 50,000cfm. Jeeze I’d never run low on air with that type of CFM.

side note: don’t be a douch- drain ya damn tank. Literally 20 seconds.
 
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