Blown to high heavens

I just came up with this gif video which reminded me of something I heard once. No idea if this ever happened but it is a kinda fun and a bit educational story nevertheless.

Some road workers around here had their asphalt machine repaired. Specifically, the burner of the tank that holds the bitumen material before it is mixed to become asphalt. This is a pretty big tank, almost 10 qubic meters (or about 350cubic ft) in volume, typically full of very hot asphalt material. As you can guess, keeping this stuff hot takes a lot of energy and the burner that keeps is hot is quite powerful.

Now, this time, after the burner repair, someone decided to do a test run. With the tank completely empty.

Not a good idea. Just a few moments after the burner was turned on the tank lid brew off. No, it didn't blow open, it blew off. With nothing in the tank to absorb the massive amount of heat from the burner the air inside immediately became extremely hot, and thus, as physical laws dictate, grew in volume. With a lid on and closed the volume couldn't grow so pressure increased. And very shortly the pressure grew too large and the lid of the container very literally took off towards the sky.

They never found the place where the lid landed.



Or so the story says, at least.