LPG Automotive Tanks that May leak LPG Recalled
February 1, 2009
There has been a national recall of more than 13,500 LPG automotive tanks that may leak liquid LPG.
Axiom-brand hand taps on the tanks may have been fitted with an undersized O-rings, leading to the potential leaks.
The problem affects tanks fitted between November last year and February this year across the country.
LPG cylinder manufacturer APA is attempting to contact all motorists with the affected product.
In the meantime motorists have been advised not to refill the LPG tank, to avoid parking in a confined space and to contact their installer to have the affected part replaced.
Source: http://arafura.axxs.org
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Concerns about LPG Powered Cars in Enclosed Car Parks
January 23, 2009
LPG (under a variety of names “GPL” and “Auto gas” also) is widely used as a vehicle fuel in Far East, USA, Europe. USA, UK, Holland, Italy and France have particularly well developed infrastructures.
There are serious restrictions on LPG fuelled vehicles using ferries, tunnels, enclosed car parks. They do check and they turn back vehicles simply when found. All underground car parks in Europe and in the USA have signs banning for LPG powered vehicles.
Since 2001, LPG tanks and fuel systems are fitted with active safety mechanisms that better minimize the risk of explosion or leakage, making it safe to park vehicles also in multi-story and underground car parks. The Italy Interior Ministry allows all LPG vehicles with a safety system that complies to the ECE/ONU no. 67/01 Regulation to park on the first underground floor of multi-story car parks, even when connected to other underground floors.
LPG is pressurized and LPG tanks are sealed. Sealed tanks eliminate evaporative emissions or spillage. Using outage valves incorrectly during refueling, however, could cause excess vapor discharge.
The weight of LPG vapors at ambient temperatures is approximately 150 % the weight of air. If there is a leak, LPG vapors tend to sink to the ground and pool, creating a potentially hazardous situation. In some areas in North America, LPG vehicles are not allowed in enclosed car parks, tunnels. LPG is extremely volatile and burns twice as hot as a gasoline fire. Vehicle fuel tanks in LPG vehicles are of relatively thick-wall steel construction. In the event of a vehicle crash, they are much less prone to rupture or to cause fires than gasoline tanks.
LPG can explode when mixed with air in the range 1.8 % to 8.6 %. It requires a small ignition source, which could be a match, cigarette, electrical spark (think overhead catenary) or even a simple sharp strike against certain materials, particularly metals containing aluminum, magnesium, titanium etc.
You can smell a leak of LPG, but you have nowhere to go to escape in such place. LPG gas sinks so its difficult for the ventilation system to extract it. Spilt petrol falls to the ground, but then it evaporates. Auto gas is more explosive than petrol.
LPG is stored in a closed high pressure system so any breach will leak gas or liquid that rapidly gasifies leading to an air/gas mixture of potentially the correct proportions. Once ignited the explosion is highly likely to lead to fire and subsequent possible death by carbon monoxide poisoning as well as fire and shrapnel injuries.
Federal Council of Switzerland has officially banned LPG powered vehicles from multi-storey car parks! An appropriate sign was developed, but it cannot be used in German-speaking Switzerland because nobody understands the meaning of the French abbreviation GPL. Authorities has written to the Council to launch a debate on both a Switzerland-wide ban and an appropriate sign that can be understood throughout Switzerland, or even throughout Europe. The rules in force do not prohibit the imposition of individual bans. The owner or the management of a multi-storey car parks have the right to ban access to vehicles of this type by putting up an appropriate sign, and naturally such an arrangement would apply to foreign vehicles too.
In case of basement fires offer a degree of complexity and hazard beyond the normal building fire due to heat build up and the need for firefighting access being made from above. Enclosed car fires can develop to create an extreme heat and smoke environment, possibly compromising the structure. This may have a direct impact on not only occupants but also firefighter safety, especially in relation to search and rescue.
Insurance Companies in Europe and USA have continued the risk analysis and made recommendations on the construction, equipment and other safety measures of multi-storey enclosed car parks.
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Safer Parking award from the British Parking Association
December 28, 2008
Westfield London, the capitals newest shopping centre, has been awarded a Safer Parking award from the British Parking Association (BPA) within its first six weeks of opening. Europes biggest inner city shopping and leisure destination received Park Mark status at a recent ceremony for providing a safe parking facility with 4,500 spaces.
| Car park manager, Gary Lee was presented with the Park Mark Award from Sector Inspector Paul Banbro of Hammersmith & Fulham Metropolitan Police Borough. PC David Hinton was also at the presentation. The team is directly responsible for the Policing of the Westfield London Shopping Centre.
The Safer Parking Scheme (SPS), run by the BPA for the Association of Chief Police Officers, was developed to provide a benchmark standard for all parking areas across the UK, to create safer parking both for the public and their vehicles. The Park Mark Safer Parking Award is granted to parking areas that have achieved the requirements of a risk assessment conducted by the Police. These requirements mean the parking operator has put in place measures that help to deter criminal activity and anti-social behaviour, thereby doing everything they can to prevent crime and reduce the fear of crime in their parking area. |
| Gary Lee said: We are delighted to receive Park Mark status in the opening weeks of the new centre. We are committed to the highest level of customer service, and with Christmas due to be our busiest time, it was vital to provide all our shoppers with a safe and reliable parking facility while they enjoy the new centre.
The shopping centre in Shepherds Bush has a vehicle management system to indicate parking availability and also offers a valet parking service for the convenience of its customers. Kelvin Reynolds, head of SPS at the British Parking Association, said: With the number of Park Mark awards on the increase – we now have over 3,700 members – it proves that the scheme is an invaluable tool in helping to make parking environments safe and increasing public reassurance in these areas. When drivers leave their cars in Park Mark award facilities they will find them exactly as they left them on their return.
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Spain destroys lost Roman city for a car park
September 6, 2008
THE archeologists could barely hide their excitement. Beneath the main square of Ecija, a small town in southern Spain, they had unearthed an astounding treasure trove of Roman history.
They discovered a well-preserved Roman forum, bath house, gymnasium and temple as well as dozens of private homes and hundreds of mosaics and statues — one of them considered to be among the finest found.
But now the bulldozers have moved in. The last vestiges of the lost city known as Colonia Augusta Firma Astigi — one of the great cities of the Roman world — have been destroyed to build an underground municipal car park.
Dr Sonia Zakrzewski, a senior lecturer in archeology at Southampton University who has worked on the site, said: “It is a real shock when things like this happen. I am surprised it has gone ahead. There is no doubt this site is of fundamental importance to archeology.”
Much of the site has been hurriedly concreted over: the only minor concession to archeologists and historians, is to leave a tiny section on show for tourists. The rest will be space for 299 cars.
The Roman city has proved to be one of the biggest in the ancient world. Its estimated 30,000 citizens dominated the olive oil industry. Terracotta urns from Ecija have been discovered as far away as Britain and Rome.
The region produced three Roman emperors — Trajan, Theodosius and Hadrian — and the research has shown that Ecija was almost as important in the Roman world as Cordoba and Seville.
The socialist council says that had it not dug up the main square, Plaza de Espana, to build the car park in 1998, the remains would never have been found. But it insists the town must press ahead with the new car park.
“Nonsense,” says the town’s chief archeologist, Antonio Fernandez Ugalde, director of the municipal museum. “For some reason, the politicians here think it is more important to park their own cars. It simply does not make sense.”
But despite opposition from numerous other archeological groups and the Spanish Royal Academy of Art, there is now no possibility of restoring the 2,000-year-old Roman town.
The most exquisite discovery was a statue, known as the Wounded Amazon, modelled on an ancient Greek goddess of war. Only three other such statues are known to exist. The one in Ecija is in by far the best condition with some of its original decorative paint intact.
Juan Wic, the mayor, who is responsible for the car park project, said he was happy to have kept one of his main election pledges. He said it was “essential for the commercial future of the square and city”.
Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk
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Rome’s Car-Parking Chaos Sparks “Barbarian” Debate
September 6, 2008
Visitors leaving Rome with anecdotes of cars parked on zebra crossings, blocking pavements or two abreast on narrow streets would probably think the locals would welcome plans for a giant new carpark.
But this is Italy, where the calmest of conversations looks like a row, and debate between conservationists and modernizers over a carpark on an ancient hillside has escalated into a raging debate with both sides calling each other “barbarians.”
Some of the biggest names in Italian culture and politics – film director Franco Zeffirelli, pop star Adriano Celentano and centre-left opposition leader Walter Veltroni – are involved.
In a city that is effectively an open-air museum, bulldozers starting public works are almost always halted by archaeologists hailing the discovery of yet another ancient ruin.
Pincio hill is a Neoclassical terraced garden designed by Giuseppe Valadier in the early 19th century astride 1st Century BC ruins that conservationists have dubbed a “Secret Pompeii.”
City hall chose Pincio two years ago for a seven-storey, 726 space carpark to allow the narrow streets between Piazza del Popolo and Piazza di Spagna — one of Europe‘s poshest shopping districts – to be reserved for pedestrians.
In a city whose drivers American travel writer Bill Bryson said “park their cars the way I would park if I had just spilled a beaker of hydrochloric acid in my lap,” there is a clear need for more orderly parking and more public transport.
The debate essentially forces Romans to choose between their passion for cars – Italy has one of highest densities of car ownership in the world — and pride in their ancient culture.
The Pincio carpark was approved when Veltroni was mayor but Rome is now run by right-winger Gianni Alemanno. Traditionalists in Italy’s conservative government want him to ditch the plan — as do some leftists like Celentano, who called it “degenerate.”
In the latest round, Culture Minister Sandro Bondi – a poet – accused the centre left of turning Rome into “a supermarket for mass tourism.” In a letter to one newspaper, he proposed an international contest to solve Rome’s traffic problems.
Veltroni, a novelist and modernist, says the real barbarians are those who say “no” to anything new “in the country with the most acute ‘Nimby’ (Not in My Back Yard) syndrome in the world.”
“Without local people the centre of Rome risks becoming a giant tourist mall … and local people must have somewhere to park their cars,” he wrote in Corriere della Sera Newspaper.
Source: http://www.reuters.com
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