See the full article at: http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/08/13/molasses-disaster-boston-north-end-showed-lethal-power-thick-substances/nbhChG332PTOLTAnd7L6DL/story.html
Thursday, August 15, 2013
"Magazine Looks at the Science Behind 1919 Molasses Disaster"
I was reading The Boston Globe today and I found an article revealing the science behind how a molasses flood is much more dangerous and destructive than a water flood of the same size. Scientist Ferris Jabr analyzes the science behind molasses, like how the substance is "non-Newtonian" fluid, meaning its viscosity changes due to temperature. Examples of the same type of fluid would be ketchup, toothpaste and whipped cream. Jabr claims that property the molasses has makes it more dangerous than a tsunami. He says the molasses moved quickly at first, demolishing buildings, then became slower and more viscous. The sticky liquid trapped people, causing them to stay in place "like a gnat trapped in tree sap" said Jabr. Due to the stickiness of the molasses, clean up took weeks, as opposed to a flood clean up which would have taken about half that time.
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While we have heard of the water flood in New Jersey this year and are all familiar with the Valdez oil spill in 2010 and now the Great Molasses Disaster of 1919, I bet no one has ever heard of the London Beer Flood of 1814. Well here is the tale of ale (not my line). In 1814 a twenty foot high vat of beer belonging to the Meux and Company Brewery burst under the pressure caused during the fermentation process, causing a chain reaction among several of the other vats. In the end, three hundred and twenty three thousand gallons of the frothy liquid spilled into the streets, destroying two houses in its path. While I am sure that this accident, like that of the Molasses flood, stirs up a giggle and maybe a joke or two, nine people actually perished. Seven people drowned, one died of injuries sustained from the impact, and one died later from alcohol poisoning (literally overcome from excessive consumption of the “free” beer).The cause of the disaster was fermentation, one of the suspected causes of the Molasses Disaster (but we know better). After an investigation, no one was found liable but rather it was deemed an “act of God”. Ironically both the Meux Company and the USIA Company produced distilled spirits. Another ironic similarity between the two companies was their location. The brewery, like the molasses tank, was situated in a poor neighborhood among tenements.
ReplyDeleteThe big difference, as Katie pointed out, involved the viscosity of the liquid. One of the measures of viscosity is by CPS (the resistance of the material flow measured in Centipoise). To get a better picture of what the people of Boston had to deal with as compared to those in London during and after the explosions, consider these figures:
CPS of water at 60⁰ F - 1
CPS of beer at 60⁰ F – 18
CPS of molasses at 60⁰ F 720- 18,000
CPS of blackstrap molasses at 60⁰ F 40,000