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Titanium-Headed Golf Clubs Create Brush Fire Hazard In California
Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "Things to pack in your golf bag: clubs, balls, tees, beverages and a fire extinguisher. The NYT reports that scientists have determined that striking a rock while swinging a titanium club can create a shower of sparks that are hot enough, and last long enough, to start a brush fire. The finding, by researchers at the University of California, Irvine, clears up what fire officials in Southern California have seen as a mystery: the origin of two recent golf course fires in Irvine and Mission Viejo including one that burned 25 acres and injured a firefighter in 2010. "That was hard for anybody to believe," says Steve Concialdi, a captain with the Orange County Fire Authority. "We were thinking they were started by cigars or cigarettes." Most clubs come with stainless steel heads, but a significant number have recently been produced with a titanium alloy, which makes them lighter and easier to swing. The only problem is that, when struck against hard surfaces — like rocks or concrete — the impact with the rock abrades the titanium surface, producing small particles — up to about one-fiftieth of an inch in diameter — that burned for up to a second, at temperatures high enough to cause dry vegetation to ignite. Given the drought in California and the extreme fire danger, Concialdi says the fire department is asking golfers using titanium-coated clubs to move their balls away from rocks and dry vegetation and onto the irrigated fairways. He says while golfers may complain it's making the game easier, it's too risky to do otherwise this season. "Talk about a hazard," says Concialdi. "We are looking at a severe fire season because of the drought, and no one should take chances with titanium clubs on dry ground.""
Can't really be more first world, can it?
Seriously. That would mean something interesting happened while playing golf, which is just too far of a stretch.
If you think this is bad, you should see what happened to the last guy who waded into the watar hazard with my cesium club heads.
The solution is simple: let's ditch the titanium clubs and start making magnesium ones!
Yes, I agree that forest fires are a significant issue.. however, why can't they just stop playing golf when the state is hit by severe droughts? Not just the fire hazard, but a waste of irrigation water... I believe this is excess luxury which harms the environment.
Play it as it lays! Water Trap, Sand Trap, Raging Inferno Trap. If you can reach it, play it!
'He says while golfers may complain it's making the game easier' So they are using lighter clubs to make it easier, then complain they have to move the ball to the fairway?
Sig?
May cause sparks when they hit a rock. I haven't noticed many rocks on the greens of golf courses, but I'm not a golfer. Also, if a shower of sparks came off your club and started a conflagration wouldn't you notice?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Only the poor would cover their titanium clubs with steel.
Real 1%ers will demand gold or platinum.
May cause sparks when they hit a rock. I haven't noticed many rocks on the greens of golf courses, but I'm not a golfer. Also, if a shower of sparks came off your club and started a conflagration wouldn't you notice?
And of course, greens - being watered and cut regularly - don't burn. But roughs sure do. And that is where the two fires started - in the dry rough where there were most definitely rocks. The CBS news last night showed one of the actual locations where the brush fire started and, yes, it was full of rocks.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Yes, obviously. There are no rocks on greens, but there are likely no titanium heads, either. That's where you use the putter. Putters need to have some weight to them since you don't swing them very hard.
You might swing hard with a titanium head club on the tee or on the fairway, but you're unlikely to encounter rocks there, either. You're also unlikely to encounter dry grass.
The problem is when golfers hit into deep rough, which can be far off from the fairway that you're intended to play from. Rough can be largely unmaintained. There can be fallen trees, tall grass, and rocks. It isn't irrigated, so it's likely to be as dry as wild grass. And, no, you may not see sparks on a bright summer day. Daylight in an open field on a clear is quite glaring. Even if you did see the sparks, you may not see any flame. The fire could smolder for hours as a tiny ember before finally flaring to life. That's why you're always told to cover a fire pit with sand before you leave it to ensure it's extinguished, remember?
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
Brush fires are only a 1 stroke penalty, but they have to play again from the same spot.
You can "ignite" the bush without immediately creating obvious smoke and fire. People cause brush fires by stubbing out cigarettes for the same reason, they think "the ground I stubbed this out on is not currently obviously aflame, therefore I'm good".
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
It's a big leap to say 'titanium clubs may cause sparks' to 'they caused these 2 fires'.
If you read TFA, and not just the TFS, you will discover that in both of the cases the golfers knew that their clubs had started the fires and said so!
They just weren't believed.
So this is no "theory" - it is simply confirmation of the cause already stated by the (unsuspecting and no doubt quite surprised) perpetrators.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
You can find rocks in the rough, or even off the hole completely, where grass is going to be much higher and much more likely to be dead and dry, particularly in a drought situation (and many golf courses out west go for a "deserty" look). And having read an article about this a few days ago, they found out that sparks from a titanium club hitting a rock burn at over 3000 degrees for over a second. Easily enough to ignite dry grass. It's not a shower of sparks either, all it takes is 2 or 3.
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The people noticed. Explained what happened and weren't believed. The authorities thought they'd dropped a cigar or something. Now they realize these people may have been telling the truth. I've done some metal working with Titanium alloy in the past. It throws VERY hot sparks. Aluminum hardly sparks at all, and when it does they aren't very hot and do not last long at all.
Also, most brush fires start UNDER the grass. There's a dry bed of grass beneeth the green gras above. The fire spreads under the grass and you very well may not notice it. It will kreep along until it hits a big fuel source. I could see someone hitting a ball out of the rough... then walking up to the cart or whatever and notice smoke back where you just walked away from and thinking "WTF?"
Titanium does not have any special strength vs weight. It is slightly below Steel and slightly above aluminium. But at the end of the day they are all basically the same. We make aircraft out of aluminium, because the same weight of steel would be too thin and we make steel girders out of steel because the same thing with aluminium would be too big; And we use Titanium when heat might be a problem, in general. Using reasonable alloys, their strength/weight is similar.
And 99% of metal hardness is in the heat treating. You can make steel into elastic, or rigid as diamonds.
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