Could the flame from the R6 nozzle have caused the creep failure or, alternatively, from the pool fires that existed within the general fire?
Answer Since posting “Flixborough Revisited” (January 2005), it has been claimed that “the 8″ temperature distributions could be explained by the R6 jet fire discharge” (after the explosion) and the writer, in subsequent e-mail correspondence, appears unshaken in his belief – though, to us, it seems more than incredible. If the jet fire from the R6 nozzle was the source of this post-explosion flame (initially 28″ across but widening as the entrained superheated cyclohexane vaporised), it would have to go right at Reactor 4, then left and then (ignoring buoyancy) down and past the elbow, do an about-turn within the space between the elbow and the non-return valve (!) and, without apparently affecting the non-return valve or the pipe hanger, become a stable flame no more than a few inches wide precisely targeting the intrados for at least 4 minutes in the midst of a general fire (competing for the oxygen necessary to maintain the flame pattern) and with the escape pressure (driving the f
