How Reckless Golfing Almost Burned This City to the Ground

In August of 2010 , a fire that burn 12 demesne in Irvine , California was allegedly started by a golfer . His ball had wander off the green and into the rough , and something dangerous happened when he hit the lump off some rock . After a scientific investigation , we know what lit the fire .

Somehow , his club had created Dame Muriel Spark that roared into a massive ardor . The Orange County Registerreported that it take near 200 firefighterson the ground combine with aid from helicopters to put out the blazing . The following summer , a similar fire was started atArroyo Trabuco Golf Club , also in Orange County .

How were these golfers starting brushfires ? Orange County flak investigators demand UC Irvine researchers to investigate . Their research was published recently in the journalFire and Materials .

The lead investigator , a UC Irvine chemical engineering & material science professor namedJames Earthman , suspected that the atomic number 22 might be to fault . Titanium is apyrophoricmetal , which entail it can spontaneously catch fire in the aviation when powderized or sliced into super belittled shard . More and more golf clubs are being manufactured from a Ti alloy rather than from untainted steel , because they ’re forty percent lighter , make them easier to swing .

The research worker used gamy - upper cameras and knock-down microscopy technique to seek to determine just how people were lighting their golf course on fire . That begin with vivify golf course of study stipulation in the research lab . The data-based golf game track was design to mimic the environmental precondition under which the fires were go down , like temperature and proportional humidity . Using two different three - irons and one three - wood whose heads were coated with a atomic number 22 alloy , and a 2d set of irons and woods cake only of untarnished sword , the investigator set about smack some rocks that they dug up from the Arroyo Trabuco Golf Club .

The titanium alloy order all sparked . None of the stainless steel one did .

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Here ’s how it works : when a club strikes a hard surface like a rock , microscopical shard of titanium can kowtow off . Those particles react with oxygen or N in the atmosphere , causing the particles to ignite . Earthman ’s inquiry show that those particles can reach temperatures up to 4400 degrees Fahrenheit , and can burn for up to one secondment . If the term are correct , that ’s plenty of time for the spark to state on some dry foliage and induce a fire .

And it ’s the same chemical substance chemical reaction responsible for for the beautiful halos produce when helicopter bring in the desert .

Kyle Hill wrote about the Kopp - Etchells Effect last year inNautilus mag :

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To foreclose other abasement , most whirlybird blade are coated with an abrasion strip . This funnies , typically made of a metal like Ti or nickel , prevent the conduct edge of the leaf blade from being worn down too speedily by the various particulate hazards of the atmosphere . This corrasion strip can wield a lot of wear and bust , but the desert is a coarse environment . George Sand is hard than the titanium or nickel note that makes up the abrasion cartoon strip , so when a helicopter ’s blades begin cutting through a cloud of backbone , the particles hit the blades and send snatch of metallic element aviate into the air travel .

Those particle , like the unity that flake off of titanium golf game clubs , are then poised to ignite .

One chemical substance chemical reaction , two starkly different outcomes . In the desert , it create a spectacular , beautiful scene silhouetted against the night sky . On the golf class , particularly in wildfire - prostrate Southern California , the resultant is far more severe .

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Which lead to an interesting dubiousness : in the progressively teetotal part , presently suffering from amajor drouth , should golf class regulate the types of clubs that can be used ?

https://gizmodo.com/californias-terrifying-drought-summed-up-in-two-satel-1506989095

Arulmoli J. , Vu B. , Sung M.J. , Mohamed F.A. & Earthman J.C. ( 2014).Spark production by abrasion of atomic number 22 admixture in golf game ball club heads , Fire and Materials .

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