Sunday 25 November 2012

mundane monday - # 7

hope you had a nice weekend (and those in the US, a nice long weekend !)... thanks for visiting every week, and if you are new to the blog, do take time to stay and take a look around here :)

today's picture is something so common in every indian household that it isnt even given a second thought. a gas burner. you dont realise how accustomed you are to it, until you move out of india and groan at the prospect of rental apartments with an electric range :)

the irony in india is that though it is considered a basic necessity, you might end up crazy running from pillar to post, if you are setting up house and trying to get a new gas connection.

coming to the picture, there is a certain coolness about a blue flame from a gas burner. have you ever looked at it when your kitchen was otherwise dark ? there is something beautiful about the symmetry in blue, the flame from each perfectly aligned hole merging into one ...

From mundane monday



(btw, the shape of the burners in india are different from those in gas ranges in the US and elsewhere... so the shape of the flame would look different too.... )

6 comments:

  1. simply nice :-) its really good to see the blue flame everyday which reminds me that thank god, i too have a gas connection which is getting scarce nowadays :-)

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    1. hey, thanks rej ! yeah, it has become one of those things which we feel thankful for !

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  2. The post pretty much made me google and find this link:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame

    I was fascinated why it always has to be a blue flame. Looks like, there is some rationale behind it.

    The blue flame is supposedly due to an oxygenated version of fuel. Whereas a Red flame is pure and rich fuel flame. Despite that the intriguing question ? why aim for a blue flame.

    I fathom, to reduce fuel costs and secondly red flame creates smoke and soot.

    I now see sense in the statement why burners have to be clean and always glow blue. Especially since I have tried and inserted unused match sticks through all/most of the burner grooves and have recreating a near olympic flame effect. and eventually all the burnt wood would start burning red causing so much smoke and colour.

    The push for brass-burners would be for relative merits. Ferrite burners rust due to moisture from the cooking pans / cooked food, difficult to clean too.

    Have you known how a gas burner flame never travels back into the cylinder and cause an explosion? For this, please please please, I suggest you DON'T start experimenting with it. I can explain it later.

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    1. looks like someone else took over the googling and wiking this week :) thanks for the extensive comment and all the details... yeah i do know that orange flame indicates some dirt or other accumulation in the burner grooves... and no, i would never intend to do such experiments at home :) (i was never one to experiment much even in a science lab !) i can assure you i'm too old to have the inclination for such experiments !

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  3. I missed another bit.

    Flame temperature and colour. Red is at the lower end of the flame temperature. So despite rich fuel, more smoke, more soot and lower heat. Hence the blue.

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  4. The science behind flame not travelling back into the cyclinder is quite simple, but surely would have taken a lot of effort.

    LPG when compressed is a pressurised liquid. On opening the vent, it expands to become a gas and thereby creating more volume inflating the pressure in the tubes. This is like a flow of air at higher pressure trying to escape out of the nozzle. If flame was to try travel inside the nozzle, due to the lack of oxygen it dies down. But even otherwise, the inflated pressure keeps the flame pushed out always.

    So technically Gas cylinders can not be made to explode easily.

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