Investigation of iron containers for storage of hydrogen gas – Translation of the Adolf Martens’ spectacular failure investigation report published in 1896

More than 400 iron hydrogen storage containers (also called bottles or cylinders exploded on the air strip Berlin-Tempelhof on May 25, 1894, leaving immense destruction. The Royal Prussian Materials Testing Institute was requested to investigate the material properties and to furnish an expertise, how an increased safety of such cylinders might be achieved for the future under protection of the interests of the air ship service, as for instance by improvement of delivery specifications or respective material inspections.The studies conducted personally by the director Prof. Adolf Martens and his deputy Prof. M. Rudeloff represent one of the first comprehensive failure case investigations in history and initiated BAMs long tradition in failure analysis. Martens and his colleague elaborated quite detailed specimen plans and investigated original failure parts with a special emphasis on conspicuous fracture appearance, but also made comparison experiments with hardened as well as annealed samples. Experienced investigators might identify some first routines how to conduct failure analyses and the importance of Adolf Martens as a pioneer in this field becomes evident.Martenś publications about the original expertise Martens, 1896 [1] and [2] include detailed descriptions about the experimental procedures and specimen preparation. Also, quite modern materials testing technologies and machines have been utilized, as for instance light microscopy as well as the tensile testing machines developed by Werder and Pohlmeyer. As special features developed by Martens, precision strain measurements have been applied during respective tensile tests and the so-called micro-photographic apparatus has been adopted to produce photos of the investigated microstructures. Additionally, the publications contain at that time very valuable advices regarding appropriate materials selection for gas storage cylinders.The present contribution provides a nearly complete and as exact as possible translation of the original report Martens, 1896 [1] written in Old German language. Only little changes have been made in the text for a better understanding.