What Is It? for 3/18/12

Some type of bulk head

It's a six chamber carbonite storage container.

Back of an old searchlight...

Dr. Denton hatch for a Dalek.

The back door of a TARDIS.

Something to do with torpedoes.

Boiler for a steam engine. The rust dribble and colour make me think it's from a steam ship.

A prop for a movie?

Looks like Dr. Evils Alan Persons project!

Bulkhead door to a reactor. Thoses "I"s look like andles and the piece seems to be circular.

Blast door to the Fort Knox vault?

It isn't the escape hatch on one of these:

Nah, the bomb doors were curved....

Why would your RAF comrades need escape hatches...?

Two of them are being sheltered by the Resistance and I'm trying to get them back to Blighty.

Then they need access hatches, not escape hatches. Scaray Bleugh! Now listen very carefully...

Haven't got a clue, but, some of the detail shows up well when I zoom in in my browser: for example the six circular handles are numbered 1 to 3 from top to bottom on the right and 4 to 6 top to bottom on the left (OK I can't see 1 and 4: just assuming), on both the handles and the bulkhead as thought these are designed to be removed.

Here's 5, also includes that one odd extra "tab" on the central pillars:-

So at some point they've been removed and refitted. The mechanic likes working anti-clockwise.

So the question is: are they "inspection" hatches, or when you pull them out, do the control rods come with them?

I haven't worked out what the vertical poles are for. The centre seam looks permanent, not like a joint, so my initial thought that the poles might be handles to open the two halves of the circle can't be right.

Could it be the top of a crygenic container? The removable roundels being the tops of the storage tubes.

I'm thinking seed storage, or Antartic ice core storage.

I'm guessing a heat exchanger. The bolts down the center indicate a divider plate. The six closures might be inspection/clean-out ports.

Something like this?

Stairway to heaven anyone?

Door to the TBR at KrisDel^TM labs
Del
_{(Tea and Biscuit Repository)}

You've woken up! Were you getting to warm on the windowsill in the spring sunshine?

Entrance to the CR4 archives .

Yeah, that's a bathproof door
Del

I'm still looking for the 6 keyholders, but I think they all went inside and pulled the door shut.

No problem.

According to herbie, this week's image contributor, it's the door to a first stage heat exchanger of a 2mw steam turbine.