Quote:
Originally Posted by ETR3(SS)
Ah submarine batteries, one of two things on the boat that was referred to as "the bomb." I haven't seen this movie but after this am quite interested in it. Now on to batteries, hydrogen, and you! As was mentioned earlier when the batteries on a submarine are being charged they give off hydrogen gas. It is extremely important to control the hydrogen levels in the boat as 4% becomes combustible and 8% becomes explosive. Any source of heat will cause the hydrogen to ignite. There was a US submarine (who's name escapes me atm) that had a battery fire at sea and had to be abandoned.
So to answer the question posed this would have been a fire as a result of hydrogen buildup. However at 17% concentration in an enclosed space it would have exploded and tore a hole into the boat.
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One hell of an excellent answer....one I would never be able to better
I'll post this to support the above
Hydrogen gas (dihydrogen or molecular hydrogen)
[10] is highly flammable and will burn in air at a very wide range of concentrations between 4% and 75% by volume.
[11] The
enthalpy of combustion for hydrogen is −286 kJ/mol:
[12]
2 H2(g) + O2(g) → 2 H2O(l) + 572 kJ (286 kJ/mol)
[note 1] Hydrogen gas forms explosive mixtures with air in the concentration range 4–74% (volume per cent of hydrogen in air) and with chlorine in the range 5–95%. The mixtures spontaneously detonate by spark, heat or sunlight. The hydrogen
autoignition temperature, the temperature of spontaneous ignition in air, is 500 °C (932 °F).
[13] Pure hydrogen-oxygen flames emit
ultraviolet light and are nearly invisible to the naked eye, as illustrated by the faint plume of the
Space Shuttle main engine compared to the highly visible plume of a
Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster. The detection of a burning hydrogen leak may require a
flame detector; such leaks can be very dangerous. The
destruction of the Hindenburg airship was an infamous example of hydrogen combustion; the cause is debated, but the visible flames were the result of combustible materials in the ship's skin.
[14] Because hydrogen is buoyant in air, hydrogen flames tend to ascend rapidly and cause less damage than hydrocarbon fires. Two-thirds of the Hindenburg passengers survived the fire, and many deaths were instead the result of falls or burning diesel fuel.
[15]
H2 reacts with every oxidizing element. Hydrogen can react spontaneously and violently at room temperature with
chlorine and
fluorine to form the corresponding hydrogen halides,
hydrogen chloride and
hydrogen fluoride, which are also potentially dangerous
acids.
[16]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen