Shipping Products to a Low Air Pressure Area

Question

We shipped a container of wet wipes packages by sea and when the container arrived to the port it was unloaded and the packages were verified to be ok.
Then, it was loaded to a truck and shipped to a 2,200 meters (7,200 feet) area in a 8 hours drive.
When the truck unpacked the packages in the final destination all the wet wipes products were explodes and damaged.
It is impossible to send the wet wipes product without air (vacuum) as there is liquid inside the product.
We are aware that the temperature is a fact in the combined gas law so we thought about shipping the container from the port to the destination in a cooling truck.
Do you think it will solve the issue?
What will happen when the products will be unloaded from the truck and get the room temperature?
Thanks in advance for your reply.

Daniel · Answer

Air pressure at 7000 feet is about 30% less than air pressure at sea level. To keep the volume of the gas in the package constant, you would need to cool it by about 30% on an absolute scale, which corresponds to about 90 degrees Celsius. That's pretty cold.
However, you say there's also liquid inside the packages. For (some liquids)[http://www.ddbst.com/en/EED/PCP/VAP_C11.php], vapor pressure can be quite significant, and it depends strongly on temperature. If the expansion of air inside the package is the main problem, cooling might not help, but cooling could make a big difference if the explosions are driven by evaporation of the liquid.
What happens when you change the pressure even more gradually? What if you found a way to store the wet wipes at 3000' for a while? This article also suggest some solutions, but I'm not sure any would work for you.

Shipping Products to a Low Air Pressure Area

One Answer

Add your own answers!

Ask a Question