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Oh

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Who are you ready for the vacuum special the Heinemann abhors a vacuum

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Oh

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Oh

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Jamie I know how much you love riddles and so it's riddle time

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Here goes what sucks, but does not suck vacuums. That's right

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How did you know that so fast? We just did that opener with model trains and a vacuum cleaner fair enough

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Okay, since it's our last season this is a story that has been on our books since literally we started collecting myths

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We've just never tackled it because it always seemed like it was too big for us to tackle go on

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All right, there's a guy he's tasked with cleaning out one of those tanker cars on a train that holds liquid

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And he's using a steam cleaner so he's steam cleaning the whole thing and of course as he's doing that

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He's warming it up and it starts to rain

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So he caps off the tanker car and walks away the cooling rain causes the steam to contract and as the myth goes

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The train car crushes itself from a vacuum exactly that is big those train cars are they're huge. I know

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After more than a decade of detonations

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Totaling over 900 explosions

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For the first time the mythbusters are tackling an implosion

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And to do justice to this impressive long-running record

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This is gonna be cool they'll be focusing an entire episode on this one super-sized story

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I mean look at this it's going to be the biggest productions. We've ever undertaken on this show causing vacuum violence on a massive

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unprecedented scale

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But first some shop-sized science an

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Imploding

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Tanker car how could this happen tanker cars are giant 70 feet long 15 feet high

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Six steel casing meant to contain things like fuel even in case of a derailment how could something like that spontaneously

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Implode and crush itself well if it did in fact happen it had to do with pressure and pressure differential

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I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me show you with this metal can if I take this metal can and seal it and

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Then hook a vacuum pump up to it and start pumping air out. We understand what will happen. It will crush itself

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Whoops, but how could something like that happen without the action of an outside vacuum pump?

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Let me show you now. I'm about to perform a critical action in this experiment

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And that is to take a little bit of the hot water and pour it into the can

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Because in the original myth the tanker car had been steam cleaned inside and out

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Now I'm about to initiate an implosion

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First thing I do is

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cap the can

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Now fully capped this vessel was full of steam and air that was heated to its boiling point now

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That air is rapidly cooling as it's cooling. They're creating a negative pressure inside the can

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Yep, and that's the whole ballgame a difference in pressure

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Filling the container with steam pushes out the air

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But if the vessel is sealed while it's still hot and then allowed to cool

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The steam condenses and the internal pressure drops

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Meaning the now much greater external pressure

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pushes in on the surface

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And that's bad news for the can

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Oh, there we go. There we go. Oh, it's actively moving. Look at that

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I'm doing this with my mind in case you're wondering this is all telekinesis

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I

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Mind games aside the scientific principle is clearly sound now. It's just a question of scale

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We're gonna ramp things up quite a bit to this 55 gallon drum

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which not only have steel walls that are many times thicker but also

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Structurally, it's much stronger because it's round and it's got these rips so it'll present much more of a challenge

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All right now we just wait for it to boil

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For this first test, we're just gonna heat the water up until it's boiling vigorously

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Then we'll seal it up turn off the heat let it cool stand back and see what happens

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Now that it's sealed a pressure differential can develop and the weight begins for the steam to cool and condense

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That kind of makes me nervous

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If this sturdy steel barrel collapses confidence will be high that the full-scale tank car can also crumble

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How long did it take the little cans to crush those crushed very very quickly

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I'd imagined they're not structurally near as strong. No, I

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Think it's gonna be one big catastrophic kind of funk. It's gonna sound like hitting it with a baseball bat

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What's really cool about this is we heard a couple of things and bunks at the beginning

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Just

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Killed me

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But right now this thing hasn't made any noise in 15 minutes

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But what I know is happening inside there is that it's cooling and that steam is reverting back to water

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And it's creating low pressure in there, which is pulling the sides in

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They're resisting that because of their structural integrity, but at a certain point I

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Expect the outside casing to fail and it should be pretty spectacular

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Next time we hold the camera up with magazine

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You can feel that

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Oh, that was so cool

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I could feel that in my chest. Yeah, I'm not sure if that's just my heart leaping out of my throat because of that

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That was amazing

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It was a nerve-shredding display of power

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Wow and an ominous sign of the full-scale potential

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But Adam isn't ready to move on

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Before they can tackle the super-sized tank car. He wants to know exactly how much negative pressure they're dealing with

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This time we're gonna do the same test again

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But we're going to have a vacuum pressure gauge attached so that we can actually monitor what that pressure is

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We will also be timing how long it takes to cool down and

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Monitoring the temperature with an external thermocouple. That's a fancy way of saying thermometer

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All right bouncing between

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193-195 we'll be logging all of this data as this thing cools down builds this negative pressure

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okay timing starts now and

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The vacuum gauge is already moving. That's awesome and eventually crushes in the hopes

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That we'll be able to apply what we learn here to a full-size thing eventually

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Yep, and because the only difference between screwing around and science is writing it down

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Adam plots the increase in negative pressure measured in mercury

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Right now. It's just a three inches of mercury

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against time and temperature

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six inches

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How much of a vacuum will crush the can is unknown

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But quantifying the failure point is the first step to understanding the process I

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Like linear data. I'm partial to exponential curves myself

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So the more data we gather from this as it cools down that eventually crumples the better equip we are to deal with

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Continuities out there in the field

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That was just at 16 inches of mercury

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These implosions are fascinating. There's a slow intense buildup of the pressure differential and with no warning

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But what did we learn well? It took eight minutes for the steam to cool which dropped the pressure to minus 16 inches of mercury

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Considering that 30 inches of mercury is a full vacuum. That's significant

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Cool sounds and that's just repeating a little water in the drum what happens when we introduce a high-powered steam cleaner into the equation

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Coming up on mythbusters

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Awesome

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Not only is this without a doubt one of my favorite small-scale experiments. We've ever done

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The story is on track to be the biggest logistical challenge. They've ever tackled

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Holy

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Pressure vessels

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And pressure differential

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Oh

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Our familiar themes the mythbusters hold dear to their physics-loving hearts

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But in this final season spectacular they're investigating a monumental implosion

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This is gonna be cool

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Can condensing steam really cause a supersized freight train tank car to crush?

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This is great. We are gathering data. We're learning stuff. We're moving forward

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16 inches of mercury

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But the most important part about this right now is that the original tanker truck had apparently been steam clean prior to the

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Implosion incident therefore we're gonna move on to another 55 gallon drum

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But this time we're dispensing with the burner and the boiling water and we're gonna steam clean it in advance

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Okay, here we go go for it

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We're gonna try and get its temperature up

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150

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And a lot of steam in there before we cap it and see if we can initiate another crushing incident

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170

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Temperatures climbing fast

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Will the high pressure steam cleaner make a difference?

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All right

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Ceiling at 203

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It seems so this crucial component of the mythical mishap has raised the starting temperature by 10 degrees

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Consequently it's taking longer for the steam to cool and condense

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Just so much bad shed

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And the negative pressure to build

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16

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That gets you every time

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That is a heck of a rush that was 17 and a half

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There was a greater pressure differential

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Oh, yeah

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It took twice as long to implode

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And

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Appeared more violent

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It's actually collapsing a lot more than the other one did

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I think we put more energy in the system with the higher temperature and the steam

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Yep, more heat means the steam has more kinetic energy and faster water molecules create more pressure

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Yeah, look at that. Look at that. That is completely crushed

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So when the steam condensed in the capped container the eventual pressure differential was greater

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And the drum took even more of a beating

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But behind the scenes problems are afoot. Okay, keep very quiet

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We don't often show you this part of the show, but this is where the magic happens

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This is our production office and those are our producers that find the impossible to find stuff that Jamie and I need to use in episodes

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This is the team that has found us things like a 747

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RPGs

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We're calling the faa to get us permission to drop a car from a helicopter

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But right now this might very well be mission implosion

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Impossible, but we'll give them a couple more days

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So what is it we need exactly well, obviously a tank car one that's been decommissioned

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And yet is still structurally sound that's hard enough, but we also need a place to

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implode it that implies tracks to run it on and a location

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Remote enough that we can safely control that implosion involving millions of pounds of force and thousands of pounds of steel

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Without hurting any people or infrastructure and the two of those together are the reason we have never tackled this myth before

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With the production office facing long odds and a short deadline

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Jamie and adam get busy drumming up more data

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So what else can these barrels tell us that'll help us out in the field?

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Well shape and geometry are critical when it comes to pressure vessels

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And so we're going to build a more accurate scale version of our tank car cylinder and see what difference that makes

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Will the elongated cylinder of an accurately scaled tank car crush more or less easily?

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To find out jayney has been busy welding

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Well adam whips up some wooden wheels

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Almost there and gets back to his special effects roots

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There we go, I'm much happier when our experiments look at the part

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Ah awesome

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As before they simulate the steam cleaning process

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It's great for our skin

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Until the temperature maxes out

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200 then they seal it up. All right cap it up and resume their nerve-wracking way

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Timer's going

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Oh, hey

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Oh, you can hear it boiling. Oh

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You can totally hear it boiling that's awesome

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I

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Can't help but think that this would be weaker because of the lack of any bulkheads down the length of it

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Okay seven minutes in we're 11 inches of mercury

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Oh awesome. Oh that was fantastic

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Oh

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Oh, that was fabulous

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That is awesome

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You were right it was weaker it failed at a lower negative pressure than the previous one

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Another spectacular implosion

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The accurately scaled form failed faster and under less pressure

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That's just awesome data that suggests this supersized myth is right on track

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Later on mythbusters

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The tension tightens

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Holy s*** will the tank car or hosts crack first?

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For over a decade the mythbusters have traveled to incredible and expansive locations

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To carry out their investigations. Good to see you. Welcome to the white house

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They've managed supersized logistical operations of massive proportions

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It is in gentlemen 70,000 feet, but in this final season farewell. They're tackling that toughest of them all

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Welcome to argon the end of the line for the tall tail of the imploding tank car

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After months of prep sweat and fears the team has pulled it off

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It's time to stock and roll if it is indeed possible for a tank car to crush itself

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But then the testing of it is going to be one of the biggest productions we've ever undertaken on this show

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That is the biggest steam cleaner you have ever seen

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We need not only the tank car and some train tracks because that's how they get around

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But we also need a facility where we can shut down access to those tracks for safety

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Let's get to crushing

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There's no doubt about the size of the undertaking and the first piece of this giant experimental pressure puzzle is bringing the heat

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This boiler is the heart of our experiment. This is a two million

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BTU fire tube style boiler now

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What's in here is a series of tubes surrounded with water and obviously is going to heat up that water

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And it's going to create a head of steam that comes up about here and that steam is going to be up to around

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360 degrees Fahrenheit

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That's what's going to heat up our tank car

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And here's why the steamer is packing so much punch

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I'm gonna go get some tank cars

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It was almost impossible to locate but in a coupling made in geek heaven

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Adam hooks up with the super-sized star of the show. I totally get the whole thing about model trains

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How cool is that I had a whole bunch when I was in high school. Hello ladies

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This

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This is our experimental baby our tank car isn't it beautiful

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67 feet long 10 feet diameter it holds almost 30 000 gallons of liquid unless you think that the shell is thin

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It's actually almost half an inch thick

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It's the biggest single prop ever used on myth busters

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Weighing in at 67 000 pounds made from cold rolled steel

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It seems impossible that it could crush like a tin can

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To check its interior integrity

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Adam pulls the short straw

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This is not for people who don't like confined spaces

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You might think that crawling into one of these tank cars is a simple matter

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But they transport all manner of different fluids and liquids

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Which means there can be all manner of different gases in that tank car that could asphyxiate you

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You have no idea how hot it is in here

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There's an entire set of safety procedures. We had to review before climbing down in there

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I'm wearing a safety harness lest I become unconscious so I can be pulled back out

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The walls are 101 degrees

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A quick recce and adam's nervous but satisfied

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It's just a hell

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There's no internal gusting at all

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And I'm talking quietly

237
00:22:01,680 --> 00:22:05,360
Because this thing is a freaking echo chamber if someone dropped a wrench up there

238
00:22:06,000 --> 00:22:08,000
I feel like my eardrums would bleed

239
00:22:09,520 --> 00:22:15,040
It's loud but sound too sound

240
00:22:15,280 --> 00:22:16,320
Oh man

241
00:22:16,320 --> 00:22:23,120
To ensure they can form a pressure vessel the team bypasses the safety features by sealing the release valves

242
00:22:24,000 --> 00:22:25,200
What's next?

243
00:22:25,200 --> 00:22:29,840
Remember this myth is about heating the tank car up and then it happens to rain and cools it down

244
00:22:30,240 --> 00:22:34,400
So this thing right here is called a monitor and it's a spray nozzle

245
00:22:34,640 --> 00:22:38,160
We're going to try to adjust the angle and the pressure in such a way

246
00:22:38,320 --> 00:22:43,360
More this way that we can get as much of an even coverage of the tank car as possible

247
00:22:44,560 --> 00:22:46,640
I'm happy with that. That's a perfect rainstorm

248
00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:54,000
This is a giant production and one of the key things we want to monitor is the temperature of our tank

249
00:22:54,240 --> 00:22:59,040
Behind each one of these windows, we're going to have a thermometer that thermometer will go to a wire

250
00:22:59,040 --> 00:23:03,200
Which will go out there to the tank car where it will be attached to a thermo company

251
00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:06,000
Let's hook it up

252
00:23:07,200 --> 00:23:08,320
Cool

253
00:23:08,320 --> 00:23:13,120
In addition to temperature the second crucial parameter is the internal pressure

254
00:23:13,600 --> 00:23:15,600
This is officially the biggest thing I've ever drilled into

255
00:23:16,480 --> 00:23:19,840
Adam plums the steel wall and inserts a vacuum gauge

256
00:23:21,040 --> 00:23:24,160
We just turned this tank car into an experimental vessel

257
00:23:25,040 --> 00:23:27,540
And it's primed for the first step of the test

258
00:23:28,720 --> 00:23:31,200
The colossal steam cleaner is fired up

259
00:23:31,200 --> 00:23:34,400
And Adam is struggling to take it all in

260
00:23:35,840 --> 00:23:37,840
I'm having one of those moments right now

261
00:23:38,240 --> 00:23:39,200
rabid

262
00:23:39,200 --> 00:23:43,760
excitement about what is about to take place at the same time it's combined with

263
00:23:44,400 --> 00:23:48,320
A complete disbelief about what we've got set up here. I mean look at this

264
00:23:48,400 --> 00:23:51,680
We've locked down two and a half miles of train track a mile of road

265
00:23:51,840 --> 00:23:54,640
We've got about 35 guys and one two three four five

266
00:23:55,200 --> 00:24:01,120
A dozen trucks to support the implosion of that giant 70 foot long tanker car

267
00:24:02,160 --> 00:24:04,160
This is gonna be cool

268
00:24:09,440 --> 00:24:17,120
So this myth starts with a lonely train car that's just delivered its payload and it's sitting here on the tracks waiting to be cleaned

269
00:24:18,160 --> 00:24:22,880
The cleaning comes in the form of steam go ahead and open up the valve and start putting steam in the tank

270
00:24:23,040 --> 00:24:25,040
The valve opening

271
00:24:26,480 --> 00:24:32,880
Piping hot at over 300 degrees its goal is to remove every last trace of residue from the previous cargo

272
00:24:38,960 --> 00:24:41,460
It's happening. Yeah, it's already rising

273
00:24:44,400 --> 00:24:51,120
Unfortunately once the service guys had done their job they closed every hatch and valve on the tank car

274
00:24:52,000 --> 00:24:54,000
Something they should never have done

275
00:24:54,000 --> 00:24:57,120
It's gonna take a while. Yeah a lot of mass to heat up. Yeah

276
00:24:58,240 --> 00:25:04,960
Even more unfortunately it then begins to rain and the completely sealed tank car full of highly expanded steam begins cooling

277
00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:10,800
Rapidly precipitously dropping the interior pressure. And then what happens next is the whole tank car

278
00:25:11,360 --> 00:25:13,360
Collapses in on itself

279
00:25:15,040 --> 00:25:17,920
That was that gonna happen when we replicate all of those story points

280
00:25:18,080 --> 00:25:22,640
We don't know that's why we're testing it, but we will be monitoring everything from the safety of our bunker here

281
00:25:27,440 --> 00:25:32,000
While we've been heating our tank car now for about three hours and its temperature has been steadily rising

282
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:37,680
And it's very close to our small scale temperature of over 200 degrees. That's great any minute now

283
00:25:37,680 --> 00:25:43,040
We're gonna call it. I'm gonna suit up. I'll cap it get the heck out of its way and hopefully we'll watch it crush itself

284
00:25:43,680 --> 00:25:45,680
Here we go

285
00:25:46,640 --> 00:25:49,120
This is it I gotta climb on top of that thing

286
00:25:50,400 --> 00:25:52,400
Almost 210 degrees

287
00:25:52,960 --> 00:25:55,440
Shut the top man way then I set the bottom valve

288
00:25:56,800 --> 00:26:01,040
Adam enters the exclusion zone alone and climbs the boiling hot steel

289
00:26:06,400 --> 00:26:11,920
He has to be fast and careful while he creates a 60 ton pressure vessel

290
00:26:12,560 --> 00:26:15,600
Okay, we're sealed up here on climbing down

291
00:26:18,880 --> 00:26:20,880
You're closing the valve now

292
00:26:21,360 --> 00:26:25,200
Valve is closed. I am de-assing the area mission accomplished

293
00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:29,840
It's capped and the countdown to catastrophe begins. I went smothering

294
00:26:31,040 --> 00:26:33,040
Once I get back in the bunker

295
00:26:33,040 --> 00:26:35,040
It's gonna be time to make it rain

296
00:26:35,120 --> 00:26:40,400
Yep, when things cool down everything is right on track for the mythical implosion

297
00:26:40,960 --> 00:26:44,480
All right fire department. Let's make it rain copy making it rain

298
00:26:50,160 --> 00:26:53,680
Oh perfect coming up

299
00:26:54,720 --> 00:27:04,000
Oh, did you hear that this tank car tall tail terminates with a titanic test of the team's ingenuity and nerves

300
00:27:05,360 --> 00:27:07,360
Man that thing's so friggin big

301
00:27:11,280 --> 00:27:18,000
It's been a monumental effort

302
00:27:19,120 --> 00:27:21,120
All right fire department. Let's make it rain

303
00:27:22,640 --> 00:27:27,920
But the team finally has all the many parts of this mythical freight train mishap in place

304
00:27:29,600 --> 00:27:32,240
Q the physics five inches of mercury

305
00:27:34,880 --> 00:27:36,880
Six

306
00:27:36,880 --> 00:27:39,920
Nice climbing steadily. That's what we wanted to see

307
00:27:40,480 --> 00:27:46,960
The rain cools the steel the steam inside begins to condense and the negative pressure rises

308
00:27:49,760 --> 00:27:52,160
That is climbing a lot faster than our small scale

309
00:27:52,720 --> 00:27:58,000
The small scale car crushed at 11 inches the single oil drum at 17

310
00:27:58,320 --> 00:28:06,080
But a full-scale tank car implosion has never been recorded the mythbusters are once again in unknown

311
00:28:06,400 --> 00:28:08,880
Scientific territory 12 and a half. Oh

312
00:28:11,280 --> 00:28:15,600
Oh, I'm psyched the pressure differential 13

313
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:26,240
Means there's already more than 1.5 million pounds of pressure pushing on the exterior surface

314
00:28:27,680 --> 00:28:33,200
Man that makes me nervous that thing's so friggin big. I know and it keeps on rising

315
00:28:34,160 --> 00:28:36,160
17 and a half

316
00:28:38,560 --> 00:28:45,040
We've now exceeded our small scale pressures. It's ramping up just like the suspense. Come on, baby

317
00:28:45,600 --> 00:28:47,760
19 and a half and the tension

318
00:28:48,720 --> 00:28:50,640
21

319
00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:52,640
Wow

320
00:28:54,800 --> 00:28:59,520
Man it's nerve-wracking it is and I know that the like the moment I blink it's gonna happen

321
00:29:00,880 --> 00:29:02,880
23

322
00:29:02,960 --> 00:29:04,960
Damn

323
00:29:10,400 --> 00:29:12,400
25 and a half

324
00:29:13,200 --> 00:29:15,200
Holy

325
00:29:16,480 --> 00:29:18,800
15 minutes after sealing in the steam

326
00:29:19,600 --> 00:29:24,000
The negative internal pressure is almost as low as it can possibly go

327
00:29:25,520 --> 00:29:27,520
26 and a quarter

328
00:29:27,760 --> 00:29:35,920
Degraze is almost a full vacuum that that occurs at just under 30 inches of mercury and still there's no sign of an implosion

329
00:29:37,520 --> 00:29:39,520
Why they make these things tough, don't they?

330
00:29:40,640 --> 00:29:42,640
As the minutes tick by

331
00:29:42,640 --> 00:29:47,220
This is killing me right 18 and a half minutes the negative pressure plateaus

332
00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:49,920
26 and 5 8

333
00:29:52,160 --> 00:29:56,400
And for the first time the guys think the tank car might not collapse

334
00:29:56,960 --> 00:29:59,360
Remember folks science can be boring

335
00:30:01,600 --> 00:30:06,080
Look everything is working here exactly as we plan our methodology is dead on the money

336
00:30:08,320 --> 00:30:10,320
It's not working

337
00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:14,640
We've got a superheated tanker that was steam cleaned that we've now been

338
00:30:14,960 --> 00:30:22,080
Reigning on and the pressure is built far beyond what I would have considered to be a fatal catastrophic pressure to this tanker car

339
00:30:22,320 --> 00:30:25,280
And yet it's holding on at 27 inches of mercury

340
00:30:25,760 --> 00:30:28,480
This is astonishing. This is a very durable

341
00:30:29,280 --> 00:30:31,280
durable item

342
00:30:32,640 --> 00:30:34,640
It hasn't budged

343
00:30:35,360 --> 00:30:38,560
Okay, folks, we're gonna wait for it to be an even hour

344
00:30:39,760 --> 00:30:43,520
And if we haven't seen any movement on the needle by then we'll call it

345
00:30:44,080 --> 00:30:49,520
The pressure leveled off at 27 and hasn't budged and neither has the tank car

346
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:54,480
So when they hit the hour here we go, they reluctantly concede defeat

347
00:30:55,280 --> 00:30:57,440
Hold the plug and let the air back in

348
00:31:01,120 --> 00:31:06,400
Hey nice work on the rig everything we did work beautifully, but you wouldn't break

349
00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:09,200
It's not our fault

350
00:31:10,160 --> 00:31:14,720
Technically what we did to this car to try and make it collapse with a vacuum was flawless

351
00:31:18,720 --> 00:31:23,120
Oh, it's like the train car is peeing on me out of spite

352
00:31:25,440 --> 00:31:29,280
Got the tank really hot. We'd sealed it up really well

353
00:31:30,080 --> 00:31:36,400
We pulled darn near a perfect vacuum on it and yet nothing we did to it made it collapse

354
00:31:36,640 --> 00:31:37,520
so

355
00:31:37,520 --> 00:31:40,720
It turns out these cars are actually built pretty darn good, but

356
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:43,040
You know what?

357
00:31:43,040 --> 00:31:49,120
We're not done yet. We've gotten back on the phone. We've ordered another tank car as if the first one wasn't difficult enough

358
00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:53,920
Now why are we going to such extreme lengths here? It's because despite evidence to the contrary

359
00:31:54,080 --> 00:32:00,560
We don't think this myth is busted yet. Look the car that mythically imploded might have been damaged in some way that we couldn't see

360
00:32:00,560 --> 00:32:05,920
It might have been corroded on the inside some way in which it was made more susceptible to crumpling

361
00:32:06,160 --> 00:32:11,600
So we found another one and although it'll take us all night for you. It'll be a matter of seconds

362
00:32:16,240 --> 00:32:18,240
Yeah, let's crush some stuff

363
00:32:18,240 --> 00:32:21,680
With their more corroded car in place

364
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:27,520
They're removing the steam and rain from the equation and taking a shortcut to pulling the pressure

365
00:32:28,560 --> 00:32:32,240
This time around though, we're going to use this big-ass industrial vacuum

366
00:32:34,400 --> 00:32:37,760
It'll pull exactly the same vacuum that we got with the steam

367
00:32:38,960 --> 00:32:43,120
Is there anything duct tape can't do but it's going to do it in a fraction of the time

368
00:32:43,200 --> 00:32:49,040
Yep, the goal is to match the realistic negative pressure achieved using condensed steam

369
00:32:49,680 --> 00:32:54,640
With this giant vacuum cleaner. All right, so are you ready? I'm ready. All right

370
00:32:54,640 --> 00:33:02,080
So we have our second more decrepit tanker car sitting over there on the track and our giant vacuum hub is just starting up now

371
00:33:04,880 --> 00:33:06,880
That is a beautiful piece of equipment

372
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:09,440
It's going to pull a vacuum

373
00:33:09,440 --> 00:33:14,160
It's going to pull the same exact vacuum we pulled with the boilers and the pressure and the cooling etc

374
00:33:14,720 --> 00:33:19,280
I do not want to take my eyes off of it. Just want to watch it do its thing

375
00:33:20,560 --> 00:33:22,560
Except it should do it in a fraction of the time

376
00:33:23,520 --> 00:33:25,840
I want it. Oh, shit. Here's hoping

377
00:33:27,920 --> 00:33:29,920
That's what I want

378
00:33:30,720 --> 00:33:32,720
The giant vacuum pump is fast

379
00:33:33,680 --> 00:33:41,520
It's rapidly removing air and after just a few minutes it's already approaching the maximum negative pressure it can pull

380
00:33:42,320 --> 00:33:44,320
We got a negative 25

381
00:33:45,120 --> 00:33:48,960
Negative 25 will the more corroded drums succumb?

382
00:33:52,960 --> 00:34:00,080
Holding at 27 holding at 27 inches of mercury that's exactly where we were yesterday. Yeah

383
00:34:03,040 --> 00:34:15,440
To celebrate their final season, this is the myth busters number crunching countdown

384
00:34:18,080 --> 00:34:23,600
When it comes to supersize stories, it's the stats that reflect the scale

385
00:34:24,800 --> 00:34:31,520
Here's a hit list of the biggest and best the rocket sled hits 750 miles per hour

386
00:34:32,720 --> 00:34:34,720
Holy crap

387
00:34:34,880 --> 00:34:38,480
This was shot at 70 000 frames a second

388
00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:41,920
A car was dropped from 4 000 feet

389
00:34:42,560 --> 00:34:46,320
The biggest boom was 5 000 pounds of anfoam

390
00:34:48,320 --> 00:34:55,920
And adam joined the 13 mile high club when he flew to the edge of space. This is not a bad way to spend your day

391
00:35:03,520 --> 00:35:11,520
It's been a long and winding train track, but you wouldn't break

392
00:35:12,880 --> 00:35:21,440
And the team is about to find out once and for all if a steam clean and accident can cause a giant steel tank car to crush

393
00:35:22,880 --> 00:35:25,920
They've reached the same negative pressure they managed with steam

394
00:35:26,800 --> 00:35:29,200
Holding at 27 inches of mercury

395
00:35:30,160 --> 00:35:34,880
And several million pounds of force are pushing against the half inch thick steel

396
00:35:35,520 --> 00:35:37,120
squeezing

397
00:35:37,120 --> 00:35:39,120
squashing and pressing

398
00:35:42,160 --> 00:35:46,880
But the minutes tick by and it remains resolutely intact

399
00:35:49,120 --> 00:35:51,120
Still holding at 27

400
00:35:51,920 --> 00:35:53,920
Unlike their small scale

401
00:35:54,400 --> 00:35:56,400
It may not be imploding

402
00:35:56,880 --> 00:35:59,120
But it is an astonishing result

403
00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:04,160
You know as frustrating as this is to not see the train car collapse

404
00:36:04,240 --> 00:36:08,160
this is looking like it's a very valid myth because

405
00:36:09,040 --> 00:36:14,480
Everybody that we talked to swore up and down that oh no problem. This thing's gonna collapse

406
00:36:16,960 --> 00:36:20,560
That's it. That's an hour. Let's cut it turn it off

407
00:36:21,120 --> 00:36:26,960
So it just goes to show you gotta test things

408
00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:32,800
That's the sound of disappointment ladies and gentlemen

409
00:36:36,960 --> 00:36:45,360
These tank cars are actually pretty tough little bastards, but as always we have one more trick up our sleeve

410
00:36:45,600 --> 00:36:51,040
Yep, this has been such an ordeal. There is no way we are just gonna leave it here

411
00:36:51,440 --> 00:36:56,800
We are now going to arrange for our tanker car to encounter a bit of a shall we say

412
00:36:57,360 --> 00:36:58,480
accident

413
00:36:58,480 --> 00:37:03,360
All we need is a crane to drop something big and heavy on our tanker car

414
00:37:03,440 --> 00:37:07,920
And luckily it turns out that the sheriff who's been helping us out has access to a crane

415
00:37:08,640 --> 00:37:10,640
That is how we

416
00:37:10,640 --> 00:37:16,480
Are going to use that to lift this about 30 feet above that and then we're going to drop it

417
00:37:17,520 --> 00:37:20,320
Hopefully it'll leave a nice big dent in our tank car

418
00:37:20,880 --> 00:37:25,680
And then when we pull a vacuum on it that dent will cause the whole thing to buckle up

419
00:37:26,240 --> 00:37:29,360
Kind of like pulling a single card out of a house of cards

420
00:37:30,080 --> 00:37:32,080
At least that's what we hope

421
00:37:32,080 --> 00:37:38,480
Yep, it's an extremely unlikely series of events, but it is possible. That looks good to me, jamie

422
00:37:38,960 --> 00:37:46,560
After their simulated collision, they'll pull a final vacuum to recreate the steam cleaning and see if that causes a crumple

423
00:37:48,240 --> 00:37:52,560
This is intense dropping 3200 pounds on a tank car

424
00:37:53,600 --> 00:37:57,280
Something we didn't expect to be doing in this episode three two one

425
00:38:03,280 --> 00:38:05,280
Bullseye

426
00:38:09,040 --> 00:38:11,040
That's ideal

427
00:38:13,840 --> 00:38:21,280
With their completely accidental damage done, it's deja vu all over again. All right Dean go ahead and start the vacuum

428
00:38:22,560 --> 00:38:24,560
The vacuum pump fires up

429
00:38:24,560 --> 00:38:27,040
Starts sucking and the pressure plunges

430
00:38:27,600 --> 00:38:31,200
Will the kink in the steel compromise the structural integrity?

431
00:38:33,760 --> 00:38:35,920
10 minutes 21 inches of mercury

432
00:38:38,480 --> 00:38:55,440
That is a hell of a vacuum pump right there. Yeah, it's also a hell of a dent. It's a perfect dent we made. Yeah

433
00:38:57,280 --> 00:38:59,280
23 23 inches

434
00:38:59,280 --> 00:39:01,280
Come on

435
00:39:07,520 --> 00:39:09,520
Come on you melon farmer

436
00:39:21,680 --> 00:39:27,360
Finally oh 23 inches of mercury holy cow

437
00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:39,760
This is all about the geometry just like with a chicken's egg

438
00:39:40,160 --> 00:39:43,760
It's really quite strong and you can't break them in your hand if you squeeze them

439
00:39:44,160 --> 00:39:47,600
But all it takes is one little crack on the side of the frying pan

440
00:39:49,040 --> 00:39:54,000
You've got a dent just like what we put in this tank car and the whole thing unravels

441
00:40:00,240 --> 00:40:06,800
Man look at that that is beautiful

442
00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:16,880
I've never seen anything quite like that something that large and sturdy being deformed like that

443
00:40:23,760 --> 00:40:25,760
It's kind of hard to take it in

444
00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:31,920
Really is it doesn't seem right somehow. I'm getting a kind of a scale vertigo. Yeah. Yeah

445
00:40:44,240 --> 00:40:51,600
Oh, we had pulled a nearly full vacuum on two 67 foot long tank cars and achieved

446
00:40:52,240 --> 00:40:53,520
bupkus

447
00:40:53,520 --> 00:40:54,640
nothing

448
00:40:54,640 --> 00:40:56,640
In desperation we dropped a

449
00:40:57,280 --> 00:41:04,560
3200 pound concrete block on it and left a huge dent not a recommended technique for proper care and feeding of tank car

450
00:41:04,720 --> 00:41:11,200
And yet it seemed to do the trick because at 23 inches of mercury that tank car folded

451
00:41:12,480 --> 00:41:15,040
Like jamie's proverbial house of cards like this

452
00:41:16,480 --> 00:41:19,680
Here wait play my sound effect over the actual thing watch this

453
00:41:21,840 --> 00:41:22,880
Oh

454
00:41:22,880 --> 00:41:25,040
Just like that it was

455
00:41:26,000 --> 00:41:28,000
beautiful

456
00:41:28,000 --> 00:41:33,120
It looks like a big plastic bag that got deflated or something, but it's friggin

457
00:41:33,840 --> 00:41:36,800
Deck steel and for it to do that

458
00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:39,840
It's physics

459
00:41:42,240 --> 00:41:44,960
They finally got the implosion they were looking for

460
00:41:45,840 --> 00:41:49,920
But they had to stack the deck so far in favor of a failure

461
00:41:50,480 --> 00:41:52,480
This one's going to be difficult to call

462
00:41:53,040 --> 00:41:58,560
Well, this one was a bear. How do you want to call it? Well, I I think the myth as stated

463
00:41:58,720 --> 00:42:04,720
We have to conclude based on the evidence that it's busted your average tank car even under an impressive amount of vacuum pressure

464
00:42:05,040 --> 00:42:07,040
Isn't going to implode

465
00:42:07,040 --> 00:42:09,040
Agreed, but if it's

466
00:42:09,440 --> 00:42:12,080
Dented or corroded or otherwise compromised

467
00:42:12,880 --> 00:42:14,880
It could happen

468
00:42:15,600 --> 00:42:17,780
Okay, let's get the hell out of here. Okay

469
00:42:19,920 --> 00:42:23,040
We need one of those pumper cars. Yes, I totally want one