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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hobbes" data-source="post: 2455677" data-attributes="member: 3371">After Fires at Golf Courses, Study Suggests Unusual Culprits: Titanium ClubsGolf courses are covered in hazards ponds, bunkers, thick rough but here is another: the golf clubs themselves.<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/21/sports/golf/titanium-clubs-can-spark-a-fire-after-striking-a-rock-study-finds.html?partner=rss&emc=rss" target="_blank">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.</a>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, including one that burned 25  acres and injured a firefighter in 2010.Steve  Concialdi, a captain with the Orange County Fire Authority, in Irvine,  said that in both incidents, golfers using 3-irons with titanium-alloy  heads had said they hit the ground and created sparks that started the  fires.That was hard for anybody to believe, Concialdi said. We were thinking they were started by cigars or cigarettes.The  authority approached Irvine researchers, including James C. Earthman, a  professor of materials science, about verifying the golfers claims.  Although Earthman plays golf only occasionally, his interest was piqued  because he knew that bits of titanium could burn spontaneously when  exposed to air. He remembered an accident from his undergraduate days at  Rice, when another student was cleaning some titanium particles in a  chamber.The rag ignited in his hand, Earthman said. That left a pretty big impression on me.He  and his colleagues set up a test tee in which they embedded rocks.  Earthman approached a robot manufacturer about borrowing one of its  machines to take the swings, he said, but when they found out we were  going to hit rocks with it, they declined.So  he and others took the swings, using three titanium clubs and three  with stainless steel heads. Hitting rocks turned out to be no problem.  I discovered that its very easy to crush a rock with a golf club,  Earthman said. Like going through butter.They recorded the results with a high-speed video camera and reported in a recent <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/fam.2235/abstract" target="_blank">paper</a> in the journal Fire and Materials that all of the titanium clubs created sparks while none of the steel ones did.[media=youtube]sdsYHgG3jlI[/media]The  impact with the rock abraded 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.The  real danger seemed to be when you had titanium on the sole of the club  and on the leading edge, Earthman said. That created a lot of sparks,  including some that flew as far as four feet.The more sparks you have, the further they go and the longer they last, you increase the probability of ignition, he said.Concialdi  said that in one of the fires, the golfer and his partner tried  unsuccessfully to put it out using ice from their beer cooler. The blaze  consumed about an acre, but more damage was averted when a concrete  cart path acted as a firebreak.Given  the drought in California and the extreme fire danger, Concialdi said,  his department had advice for duffers who used titanium clubs and hit a  ball into a rocky spot.Were  just asking golfers to either take a penalty or, if your fellow golfers  will allow you to improve your lie, do it, he said. But do not hit  the ball in this type of area.</blockquote>

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