Graphite pressure vessel failure with sulfuric acid

Used to motivate explosive-bonded titanium-clad steel pressure vessels. Only graphite and titanium resist concentrated sulfuric acid; graphite is brittle, titanium is silver-priced. Solution: titanium thin layer explosively bonded to a thick steel backing.

You start with a base plate — might be four or five inch thick steel, typical for a clad vessel application. Because you can't afford to use titanium for, let's say, concentrated sulfuric acid in a chemical plant. All the gasoline we make is basically made using concentrated sulfuric acid as a catalyst.

Tom's arbitration testimony. Question: did the vessel explode or collapse? Explosion excluded from policy; collapse covered. Tom's exchange with the attorney ("Are we just going around in circles?" / "You may be, sir. I'm just here for the ride.") closes §1.

The second one went to arbitration, in Ohio. It was a graphite pressure vessel, and the question was, did it explode or did it collapse — because explosions were excluded from the policy, collapses were covered. So I went to the arbitration. It turned out the chief arbiter was the former vice president of American Nuclear Insurers, the ones who insured Three Mile Island. So this guy knew me from that. The big-shot attorney is asking questions: what's the definition of corrosion, what's the definition of an explosion? By the way, the word "explosion" comes from the Latin which means to clap or make a loud noise. So it turns out explosions make loud noises, okay. Collapses can make a loud noise too if you have something three stories tall and it collapses. So he's asking me these questions about how to define these words, and finally he gets frustrated and says, "Are we just going around in circles?" I said, "You may be, sir. I'm just here for the ride." Everybody cracked up.

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