An 86-year-old underground steam pipe exploded in New York City Thursday morning, spewing dangerous asbestos-tainted debris throughout the area and leaving a huge crater.

Recently I got asked to size a high pressure natural gas line, which I’m not an expert at, but I wanted to help these guys out.

The steam flow rate through a vent for a given pipe size is determined by either the vent upstream pressure (top) or vent exit pressure (bottom) for a typical steam system.

Did you know that the same pound of steam requires different pipe sizes at different pressures? This video covers how specific volume influences your boiler system's pipe dimensions. Safety notice: ...