How To Build A Liverpool-Style Optical Bench
When I worked at ICI in Runcorn, one of the guys had developed a very accurate instrument for measuring trace chemicals in a dirty process stream. I remember one of these instruments was used to measure water in parts per million in methyl methaculate, which is the misnomer or base chemical for Perspex.
All the optical components needed to be mounted on a firm base, so a metre length of nine-inch C-section steel beam was chosen. The surface was then machined flat to a high accuracy.
In the end they found that instead of using new beams, old ones decades-old from the depths of a scrap yard gave better accuracy as the steel had all crystallised out. Machined and spray-painted no-one knew their history.
But they were superb instruments and ICI even sold them abroad.
Grenfell Tower Fire: ‘Systemic Failures’ In Fire Brigade’s Response
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This is the introductory paragraph.
The London Fire Brigade (LFB) has been condemned for “serious shortcomings” and systemic failures in its response to the Grenfell Tower fire, in a report into the 2017 blaze.
I am particularly worried about the stay-put policy.
In the 1950s, I was a member of the Scouts and several times we did exercises with the London Fire Brigade, where we were taught how to get out of blazing buildings. We were also used as dummy causalities in major incident training.
Certainly, the advice then for a fire was to get out.
Around 1970, I worked on chemical plants for ICI and fire safety was taken very seriously.
I remember being told to know your escape route from where you were working. And get out fast, if anything happened. Not that it did!
One other thing I remember is on the Wilton site, seeing office windows with “Perspex Window – Fine Hazard” stencilled on them. The reason for this, was that a nearby polythene plant very occasionally caused spectacular aerial explosions and glass windows were just too dangerous, as when shattered, they covered those inside with shards of glass.
If you read the story of the Summerland Disaster in August 1973, which killed fifty people and injured eighty, Wikipedia says this about the building.
The street frontage and part of the roof was clad in Oroglas, a transparent acrylic glass sheeting.
Oroglas is a poly(methyl methacrylate) and is another tradename for the same plastic, which ICI called Perspex.
I’d left ICI, by the time of the Summerland Disaster, but I was still in contact with friends, who worked in Plastics Division, who were responsible for Perspex. One was very critical of the use of Oroglas in the building. I was also told that ICI turned down Summerland order, as they thought it was not a suitable application, as Perspex was too flammable.
I should also say, that I have lived in a tower block with my family.
From my knowledge, I would not have lived in a building with flammable cladding.
Cromwell Tower in the Barbican is clad in concrete, with a network of tunnels going a couple of floors down from each flat on the thirty-five floors. I can remember checking the fire escapes before I signed the lease.
It also has no gas supply, with underfloor electric heating.
After the Grenfell Tower fire, I feel that architects and lawmakers have completely ignored the lessons of history!
Conclusion
There is a need to make sure that we take on board all the lessons of Grenfell, so that the chance of another disaster are minimised.
Thoughts On The Tragedy At Grenfell Tower
As a family, C, myself and our three boys used to live in a tower block. Admittedly, Cromwell Tower was an upmarket tower in the Barbican. I wrote about the tower in Cromwell Tower.
Cromwell Tower was designed around a concrete core in a brutalist style in the 1960s, just like Grenfell Tower.
Cromwell Tower had a network of passages that allowed escape to the floors underneath. I suspect that Grenfell Tower had similar passages.
But there were differences.
- Cromwell Tower had a higher standard of interior finish.
- Every flat in Cromwell Tower has a wide airy balcony.
- Cromwell Tower has no gas.
- Cromwell Tower was designed for high net worth tenants, whereas Grenfell Tower was a Council block.
As both blocks were designed around the same time, I suspect that they were designed to the same set of regulations.
So why did Grenfell Tower catch fire?
These are possible reasons.
Gas
I don’t like gas, as one thing I remember from working at ICI in the 1960s, is that how powerful a gas explosion can be.
Naked gas flames also are a major cause of asthma, as they create oxides of nitrogen.
But if we had had gas in Cromwell Tower and there had been a leak, the escape passages would have been an ideal way for the gas to spread through the tower.
For these and other reasons, I believe strongly, that all multiple occupancy housing should not be connected to a gas supply.
I’ve also heard that view from a Chief Fire Officer in Suffolk.
The Design And Execution Of The Upgrade
Was it done to high enough standards?
The Cladding
\Suspicion is falling on the cladding of the building.
Smoking
How friendly was the building to smokers?
Have we really learned the lessons of the past?
The Summerland Disaster
In 1971, over fifty people were killed in a fire on the Isle of Man in the Summerland Disaster. This is Wikipedia’s summary.
The Summerland disaster occurred when a fire spread through the Summerland leisure centre in Douglas on the Isle of Man on the night of 2 August 1973. Between fifty and fifty-three people were killed and eighty seriously injured
I know it wasn’t a tower block, but I think that there are common issues.
Under Background this is said.
Summerland was opened on 25 May 1971. It was a climate-controlled building covering 3.5 acres (1.4 ha) on Douglas’s waterfront, consisting of 50,000 sq ft (4,600 m2) of floor area at a cost of £2 million. The building’s hull and the interior were designed by two different architects—they did not match their planning to each other and thereby created a venue with significant fire risks that were only to become apparent later.
So did the architects of the upgrade do a proper job? Did they have any co-operation with the original architects.
The same Background section also says this.
Summerland was designed to accommodate up to 10,000 tourists and comprised a dance area, five floors of holiday games, restaurants and public bars. It was a 1960s concrete design incorporating advanced controlled internal climate, built with novel construction techniques using new plastic materials. The street frontage and part of the roof was clad in Oroglas, a transparent acrylic glass sheeting.
Note the use of Oroglas cladding, which is still made today.
At the time of the Summerland disaster, I was working at ICI Plastics, who made a similar acrylic sheet called Perspex. As I look around my kitchen, I see various applications of this or similar plastics.
In several places in one ICI chemical works, Perspex windows were used, as there was the occasional small explosion and you didn’t want to shower people in glass fragments. But they were clearly marked Perspex Window – Fire Hazard.
So the problems of acrylic were clearly known at the time and yet, acrylic sheet was used to clad the building. One ICI Perspex expert told me, that Perspex shouldn’t be used to clad buildings.
So was the cladding itself a fire risk at Grenfell Tower because an inappropriate material was used, just as at Summerland?
Under Fire, this is said.
The fire started around 7:30 p.m. on 2 August 1973, and was caused by three boys who were smoking in a small, disused kiosk adjacent to the centre’s miniature golf course.
So was smoking, one of the causes of the fire, just as it was in the Summerland disaster?
We don’t seem to have learned much from the Summerland disaster.
Conclusion
I’m led back to gas being the cause of the original fire, as there is nothing energetic enough to cause such a fierce fire.
It is also stated in various media articles, that there were problems with the gas.
The Anonymous Widower 