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Kevlar (PPTA) is a polymer from the group of polyamides, more specifically aramids, from which artificial fibres characterized by high tensile strength are spun. It is widely used, among others, in bulletproof vests and helmets. Kevlar has probably saved the lives of thousands of people so far. It was invented in 1964 by the American chemist of the Polish origin - Stephanie Kwolek. Her parents, John Kwolek (distorted form of "Chwałek") and Nellie Zajdel Kwolek emigrated from Poland in their teens. The father, who had a decisive influence on the development of scientific interests of young Stephanie, died when she was 10. Stephanie studied in a Catholic school, run by nuns, in New Kensington. Afterwards, she majored in chemistry in Margaret Morrison Carnegie College at Carnegie Mellon University in 1946. She wanted to study medicine but due to lack of money she started working as an experimental chemist at DuPont, where she specialized in low-temperature polycondensate forming processes. She headed the team that invented Kevlar in 1964. She is the holder of 28 patents.

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In 1951, Stefan Kudelski built Nagra tape recorder, which was later used in film, radio and television. Kudelski conducted experiments at his home laboratory only in his spare time because the technical university faculty labs did not have the appropriate equipment. It was in this laboratory where the first model of Nagra tape recorder was built. Kudelski was continuously perfecting its product. The transistor version of Nagra III built in 1957 became the technological sensation in the sixties. This was the main type of tape recorder used by radio and television reporters and by film studios around the world. Kudelski received four awards of the American Film Academy for his tape recorder - two science and technology awards (1965, 1977) and two Oscars for his achievements.

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The icon of cinema, Warner Bros. film production company, was established by the businessmen with Polish roots. Warner brothers were born in Krasnosielec, near Warsaw. First, they emigrated to Baltimore, then to Canada and subsequently to Youngstown, Ohio. The father of the family changed the name from Wonskolaser to Warner while waiting for the arrival of the family from emigration wandering. The brothers pledged the family assets, a horse named Bob, and sold the father's watch in order to gain capital for purchasing a projector. Twenty years later, on 4 April 1923, they founded the film production company, which is now one of the largest in the world. They are considered the most prominent people in the American film making industry. For many years, they have been competing with another film making company – The Walt Disney Company.

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Walkie-talkie - the Motorola's iconic invention was created by a Pole. Engineer Henryk Manguski was a key member of the Motorola's team that developed the device. In early 1943, Motorola has provided the US Army with SCR-300 radio station with FM modulation. The soldiers called the device simply walkie-talkie. After the war, the walkie-talkies were more widely used. Three patents used in the first model of the device are attributed to the inventor of the Polish origin. Manguski was born in Warsaw in 1909. In 1939 he was sent on business to New York to study the American radio transmitters. The outbreak of World War II prevented his return to Poland.

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From a pharmacist to an oilman - these few words summarize the career of Ignacy Łukasiewicz- an outstanding Pole. While working by day in Lvov pharmacy "At Gold Star" (Pod Złotą Gwiazdą), he was spending evenings conducting experiments with the substance called rock oil. In 1854, Łukasiewicz opened the world's first oil mine in Bóbrka, near Krosno. Although not all historians agree on this matter, it is assumed that the "distillery" founded by Łukasiewicz in Ulaszowice near Jasło, in 1856, was also the world's first oil refinery. However, there is no doubt about the fact that Łukasiewicz was the inventor of the first oil lamp (1853) and the founder of the crude oil mine in Bóbrka in Galicia, in 1854.

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The world's first hydrogen bomb design was developed in 1951 by a team of scientists working for the US government in a secret project "Manhattan". Stanisław Ulam, a Polish mathematician and graduate of Lvov Technical University, was among the scientists working on this project. In the USA, this project is still named "Teller-Ulam" project - after Edward Teller, the team leader, and Ulam. The hydrogen bomb has a huge destructive force: it is estimated that if a city with 3 million inhabitants was attacked, half of the population would die within a few minutes or suffer serious injuries. Stanislaw Ulam was also the creator of the first numerical methods, including Monte Carlo method.

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The explosion of the oil tanks belonging to HOSL, England, which took place on 11 December 2005, was recorded by the British Geological Research Centre as an earthquake measuring 2.4 on the Richter scale. It was recorded even in Belgium, France and Holland. The cloud of smoke was visible from space.

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The shock wave forming a thin layer in which a rapid increase in gas pressure and gas flow velocity occur propagates faster than the speed of sound (in air, this value is 340 m/s).

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By 1938, the Polish industry did not produce any machinery and equipment in explosion-proof version. It was not until that year that Zakłady Elektromechaniczne Rohn-Zieliński (Electromechanical Plant Rohn-Zieliński) in Cieszyn (now ME Celma SA) started preparing for the production of explosion-proof motors based on the license documentation of the Swiss company Brown Boveri. The motors were designed for mining industry.

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Jacek Trzmiel was born in Lodz in 1928. In 1944 he was deported to Auschwitz concentration camp. The camp was liberated in 1945. Two years later he emigrated to the USA and established Commodore International. In 1977, the first personal computer Commodore PET was built. The later model, Commodore 64 (1982), left behind such giants as Apple and IBM - as many as 17 million computers were sold worldwide. Commodore 64 was entered into the Guinness Book of Records as the best-selling model in the history of computer.

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The man, whose capacitance is 200 pF, is able to charge himself electrically to 10 000 V. In this case, the energy released during an electrostatic discharge is 10 mJ. This value exceeds many times the minimum ignition energy of gases, vapours and dusts particles.

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In 1984, in Bhopal (India), there was the largest and most tragic industrial disaster in history. In the Union Carbide plant, one of the tanks containing dioxins exploded and consequently, 40 tons of extremely toxic methyl isocyanate were released into the atmosphere. Approximately 3 thousand people died as a result of the disaster and another 15 thousand as a result of the post-disaster complications.

Explosion Suppression Systems

Posted by  Marek Category Do you know that... 

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The name of the ATEX directive comes from the French expression Atmosphères Explosibles, which means explosive atmospheres.

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Production of the Polish equipment in explosion-proof version for industries outside mining industry began with the development of standard PN-63/E-08102.