Barge machine turnings fire

Passing reference — Professor Szekely consulted on metal-powder fire aboard a scrap-laden barge en route to a steel mill.

A solid rocket motor is nothing more than a metal powder fire. You get small fine metal powders, lots of surface-to-volume ratio, heat them up a little bit, and you get some really good fires. Professor Szekely had a big project once where someone was transporting a bunch of old machine turnings in a barge to the steel mill for scrap, and the barge caught on fire. It's not easy to put out a metal fire. You can't put water on it, because the oxygen in the water reacts with the metal and gives off hydrogen, and in the fire that hydrogen will sometimes go boom as you give it off.

We don't have any Coast Guard folks here, but Professor Szekely had a big project once where someone was transporting a bunch of old machine turnings in a big barge, taking them to the steel mill —