How did the massive water line explosion occur?

AI Thread Summary
The discussion centers on a massive water line explosion that occurred outside the Toronto Skydome during a baseball game. Participants speculate that the explosion may have been caused by a drainage line under high pressure due to surges from street drains and inadequate venting systems. Theories suggest that air compressibility and improper hydraulic testing could have contributed to the incident. One commenter highlights the dangers of not properly purging air from pipes during pressure tests. Overall, the exact cause remains unclear, but several plausible explanations are being debated.
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111111 said:
I saw this video on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDfZdfeJ1nc&feature=related . Does anyone know how this happened? I read through some of the comments and no one seems to have a good explanation.
THis is outside the Toronto Skydome during the 7th inning stretch.
 
My guess right now is that it was a drainage line that was fed by hundreds or more street drains located at a higher altitude which caused the water at the bottom to be under huge pressure, except that doesn't explain why it did it in surges where it was completely calm and then suddenly exploded. Unless DaveC426913 is correct :rolleyes:.

Or if they have some kind of system that will reroute the water if there is too much coming down one drain, and it got rerouted to this one, that could explain the surges.
 
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The surges were possibly from air compressibility, with an inadequate drain venting system, plus a huge rain-storm.
 
Unfortunately I can't get Youtube stuff here at work. It was a drainage line that blew?
 
Like momentun Waves said it was a air compressibility problem I'm sure. I saw a 1200 Meters pipe, 400mm diameter 0,6Mpa explode due to the fact that when they do the hidraulic test, the put the purge in the lower level area and the pump in the high one. I't opposite actually, but the chief of that construction was an architect. Need to ad more?

when you have bubbles in a pipe and by Water column you have pressure. If you don't have an air exhaust you are creating a cannon

Pablo
 
They put the purge at the lowest point? Oh man. There's someone that needs to revisit 8th grade science class.

That's a great example of why we pressure test with water and not air. Of course, if you can't get rid of all the air...
 

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