that emergency order throws the following into much-needed contrast with what was actually going on at the company
"This is what Lite employee Sheree Pierce wrote to accompany the official email:"
Sending the below e-mail was the hardest thing I have had to do. I have worked with this company 9 years and have been the contact most of you have worked with. It was never the intention of this company for this to even remotely occur. We had some internal problems and PHMSA was working with us to get all this resolved. We did not ever feel any of you receiving this e-mail were in any danger. They wanted new management and new ownership.
We gave them all they asked for after being shut down for 8 months with no sales. We worked diligently to address any internal issues we had in the past that resulted in a failure in the field. After an incident which involved a cylinder that none of you have, they did the mandatory total recall of all cylinders ever made by Lite Cylinder.
All companies experience issues but I stand by this company and its product. Whether you were just a single order customer or one of our large customers it didn’t matter. I cherish you all. We all lose in this. On our side it’s our jobs and on your side it’s also financial. I would only hope that if Lite Cylinder could ever get past this recall all of you would still be our customers. Even though we won’t be here, we are appealing the recall but we don’t know what the outcome will be. I have enjoyed working with you and consider you my friends. May God bless each of you.
[edit: atomicthumbs points out that composite cylinders are generally safe and have big benefits and that I misread the letter, so I've left this up but removed the body of the post to not confuse people.
I saw
"Lite Cylinder had installed an alarm and automatic shutdown device to stop manufacturing if the hardening catalyst required to chemically weld the cylinder seams was not being properly added during the gluing process. Several Lite Cylinder employees provided statements that the alarm and automatic shutdown process had never functioned as designed, and indicated that the shutdown device had not stopped the manufacturing process when it should have detected insufficient hardening catalyst."
in the report, and because boeing malfeasance recently, read the letter as PR and rug sweeping, and not them actually having tried to improve, but it sounds like that wasn't it.
and when i mentioned the canisters, I meant within the context of a company with so many QA failures that I wouldn't trust them if they came back, not all fiber-composite cylinders.
oops. I'll aim for more clarity.]
Lite's cylinders were fiberglass, not carbon fiber; I'm not sure anyone's ever made CF propane cylinders. I can't find any records of failures of fiberglass composite overwrapped cylinders made by their current primary manufacturer, Hexagon Ragasco (sold by Viking in the US). They're certified in hundreds of countries, including DOT certification in the US.
As long as they're properly inspected and recertified on schedule, like any other propane cylinder, they should be as safe as steel ones, with the extra advantage of being BLEVE-proof in a fire even if the relief valve fails, as the inner lining melts and the resin burns off, allowing the boiling propane to escape and burn off instead of violently bursting. They also claim a "far higher" burst pressure than steel tanks and "the best safety record in the industry" (in their marketing material; I haven't looked up test numbers).
the submersible failed because it imploded under compression. propane tanks are a higher pressure than their environment and the fibers are under tension.
as far as I can tell, the main disadvantages of current composite overwrapped tanks are:
- some propane fillers will refuse to fill any composite tank on account of people trying to fill recalled Lite tanks (though sometimes they will fill your tank if you show them the DOT certification paperwork that comes with it)
- expensive
- they have a 15-year total service life
I'd do more research to back all this up but i'm riding in the back of a car that's going in and out of cellular coverage currently
