Propane tanks hidden in obsolete scrap items make for unwelcome and dangerous stowaways at scrap yards.
But researchers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Titusville, Fla., appear to have developed a device that can defuse some of the danger.
When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently mandated new, safer valves for 50-pound barbecue grill propane tanks, owners could no longer refill older tanks, so they started sending them to area dumps and scrap yards.
Many tank owners resorted to leaving them near landfills or hiding them inside discarded refrigerators or other large appliances, according to Sonia Gribble, president of Tri-State Scrap Metal, Inc., Asheville, N.C.
Tri-State, which has several scrap recycling facilities in the Southeastern United States, handles several thousand propane tanks annually, she said, including a recent single batch of 1,000.
“Not long ago, one of my heavy equipment operators accidentally dug a hole about three feet deep into the ground when he was loading other scrap metal because a tank was hidden inside,” Gribble says. “There was a small explosion. That’s very scary.”
And it wasn’t the first time. “When we travel to county landfills, we’re constantly encountering propane tanks,” she notes. “It’s very dangerous because there are still fumes inside. It’s especially hazardous if anyone’s smoking in the scrap metal piles. The public really needs to be educated about this environmental and safety issue.”
Ultimately, Tri-State Scrap Metal wanted to develop a tool or methodology that would help the company defuse the dangers presented in handling the tanks. Gribble heard about the NASA-funded Space Alliance Technology Outreach Program (SATOP), operated by Florida’s Technological Research and Development Authority (TRDA), and decided to ask the program to help.
SATOP provides free engineering assistance to small businesses with technical challenges through the expertise of the program’s Alliance Partners, 50 aerospace companies and universities involved in the U.S. space program.
“I said, ‘You people send a Shuttle into space, so could you please help me solve this problem?’” she recalls. “They responded very quickly with the idea for a tool that really works. We welded it exactly the way they recommended; I trusted their expertise. They even followed up with our actual testing.”
The query was a perfect match for Robert Gottlieb, an associate technical fellow at The Boeing Company/Johnson Space Center, a SATOP Alliance Partner. During his youth, Gottlieb’s family owned an auto parts factory. That background, combined with his 40 years of mechanical, aerospace and orbital engineering, allowed Gottlieb to solve the problem in about two hours.
“I wanted to make it a one-stroke operation; something clever but simple,” he says. “I wondered what everyday tool would be lying around a machine shop operation. I figured they’d have to have an air compressor. I gave them a sketch of the idea and they took it from there.”