Evening star., 1932-10-04
MILK BLAST TEST
SCHEDULED TODAY
Explosions Powerful Enough
to Wreck a Building to Be
Demonstrated.
BY THOMAS r. HENRY.

Milk explosions, powerful enough to
demolish building, will be Demon
strated at the Arlington Experimental
Farm Of the Agriculture Department
this afternoon.
Under the right conditions, it is ex-
planned by David ]. Price, chemical en-
gineer Of the department. milk may be
q dangerous xplosive-although sell
dom so powerful as such apparently
inert materials as sugar or starch. Yet
1T might wreck the strongest building
In Washington II there was enough Of
1t In the right condition. The demon
stration will be staged to illustrate this
danger.
Not that the housewife need worry
about the bottle In her ice chest Only
powdered milk has the potentiality Of
exploding, and then only when fine
particles Of 1t are suspended in the
atmosphere Of an inclosed space in
great concentration, so as to form a
dust cloud. The only place where such
q concentration is probable Is In a
powdered milk factory.
Several Serious Blasts.
Several serious explosions have been
reported. Theoretically a minimum Of
at least seven ounces of milk powder
suspended in 1000 cubic feet Of air
might cause an explosion. The expert
ment today will be conducted with sew
eral pounds in about 300 cubic feet.
Actually. it Is explained, any dust
that will burn. will explode-an explo-
sion being a very rapid burning. More
and more such materials are being
added to the dangerous" list as in
dustry produces new kinds of dust.
Milk dust Is one Of the latest to cause
alarm. Dry milk, however. contains
considerable inert material, such as
that rather heavy concentration must
place.
Powdered starch is likely to produce
rather violent explosion. This will
be shown in another explosion tomor-
row There also will be staged explo-
sions of soap. sugar, grain elevator.
charcoal, wood and cork dust. The
latter is one Of the most dangerous of
all this class OF explosives
The powder is set off by coming in
contact with "hot spot" AS a gen
eral rule. there are two or three sue
cessive explosions. The first is mild,
but it shakes dust of the walls into
suspension in the atmosphere, 50 that
another blast may follow Immediately.
more powerful than the first. The ex-
plosion may travel through air shafts
and galleries to other rooms in a fac
tory, causing a succession Of explosions
which will virtually wreck a building.
Cleanliness Vital.
There is very little to be done to pre-
vent the first explosion, Agriculture
Department engineers say provided
proper attention has been paid to clean
liness. The fine dust particles are in
visible and tn concentration grows un-
noticed But this is seldom very Sc
rious if it does not spread, causing sec
ondary explosions. The only persons
likely to be injured are those in the
one room where the explosion takes
place
The primary purpose Of tomorrow's
demonstration will be to show the
value Of equipping factories with win
dows which will open automatically
when the pressure inside reaches a
certain maximum, as would be the
case in an explosion. Then the ex-
plosion expends itself without spread
ing to other parts of the building and
igniting other dust clouds
The demonstration will be staged
for the benefit Of members of the Ma
tional Safety Congress meeting here.