Exothermic Cutting Equipment

Hi Ron,

Would something like this work? Click Me

Thank you for the information on the Water Jet. What kind of space consideration is there for placing the equipment on a piece of apparatus?

I'm not sure what you mean...Are you asking how much space would this take up on a response vehicle? If so I'm not sure - basically whatever space would be required to hold a high pressure pump, hose and nozzle.

I believe a device was made for tree felling, that must be quite portable.

In looking at the Japanese system, I am startled that they can cut through steel of such a given thickness. I worked with an extremely high pressure water jet system previousliy installed at a steel mill where I was employed in the Research Department; the jet was for use in cleaning cold rolled steel surface directly after rolling. [We were cautioned that the high pressure could easily cut a persons arm off. Naturally there was concern.] The system never really worked well at cleaning the steel so I went back to the calculations used in design. Such systems necessarily must specify the output pressure at the nozzle exit (typically measured in thousandths of an inch); however, flow from these nozzles will disperse and widen rapidly with distance from the nozzle opening and even the doubling of the diameter of the stream will drop the force delivered to the surface by a factor of 4.

If such a system is to work, the nozzle to steel surfrace distance must be extremely small.

"I am startled that they can cut through steel of such a given thickness."

The high strength 5 cm thick steel that is used in the hull of the Virginia class of nuclear powered submarines is cut using a water jet cutter so yes they can cut through steel as thick as they claim. The trick is evidently adding very fine garnet flecks to the water, the garnet is evidently hard enough to tear through the steel without causing undue wear on the nozzle. The good thing about these cutters is that they don't produce the high temperatures that other cutting methods do.

I suggest doing a search on the internet for "water jet" & "cutting" & "garnet" to see if anything looks feasible.

Check this out!

http://www.flowcorp.com/

As long as the reactor sheilding remains undisturbed...

Temperature rise will depend on material, thickness and cutting speed. Also, it would be an extreme fire hazard. Check this reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermite

In Japan, similar emergency activities to the one described are taking place under trial using high pressure water/abrasive powder jetting equipment, thereby carrying out the cut without liberating excessive heat.

Depending on the application, some form of underwater breathing apparatus for the unfortunate victim may be a valuable addition to the above equipment.

Ron, my name is Ben, i am a tank mech in the marine corps. we use an exothermic cutter. it cuts much faster through any type of metel, than an oxy-acetylen torch does. but for what you are talking about doing their are ups and downs. it blows oxygen at a much higher psi and sends slag everyware. you would have to cover the victims with a welding blaket or something. their is no pre worming the metel but the victim would be showered with hot metel slag. i would recomend the cutter. having some burns would be better than no arm.