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From: chidsey@smoke.brl.mil (Irving Chidsey)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Capping oil fires
Message-ID: <1991Mar20.034218.1961@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 20 Mar 91 03:42:18 GMT
References: <1991Mar13.004310.8409@cbnews.att.com> <1991Mar18.134342.18503@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (william.b.thacker)
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, APG, MD.
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From: Irving Chidsey <chidsey@smoke.brl.mil>

In article <1991Mar18.134342.18503@cbnews.att.com> ke4zv!gary@gatech.edu (Gary Coffman) writes:
<From: ke4zv!gary@gatech.edu (Gary Coffman)
<
<A new technique will be tried in Kuwait to put out the fires. A very
<large dry ice making machine will be brought to the site and dry ice
<in large quanities will be pumped over the wellhead. The combination
<of the intense cold and the boiling gaseous CO2 is expected to put out
<the fire and cool the junk so it won't relight. This has been tried
<on small fires here in the states, but this will be the first time
<it's tried on a high pressure well fire.
<
<Gary

	Dry ice is a solid, and solids don't pump well.  Grinding to a powder
and fluidizing might work, but the wells might not last till we got the kinks
out.  It is my understanding that CO2 only liquifies under considerable
pressure.  

	My Dad was in the ice cream business, and they always had big blocks 
of dry ice to keep ice cream frozen.  There was never any liquid.

	According to my Handbook of Physical Calculations, the melting point
at 1 atmosphere should be -57 C, and the boiling point should be -80 C.

								Irv

-- 
I do not have signature authority.  I am not authorized to sign anything.
I am not authorized to commit the BRL, the DA, the DOD, or the US Government
to anything, not even by implication.  They do not tell me what their policy 
is.  They may not have one.		Irving L. Chidsey  <chidsey@brl.mil>