Australian runner, Ron Clarke carried a spectacular, fizzling flame into the Melbourne Olympic Stadium in only to miss out on the ceremony having his magnesium burns dressed. In the year it's going to be different. Strict safety guidelines demanded a torch that was highly visible yet safe to handle. Australian engineers and designers took up the challenge to deliver a torch that would not only stay alight in any weather and go anywhere - even underwater, but also produce minimal greenhouse gases.
Melanie Tilbrook looks at the steps taken to create the safest and most reliable Olympic flame ever. The runners in the '56 torch relay carried a block of naphthalene and hexamine but a more spectacular flame was felt necessary for the entry of the flame into the Melbourne Olympic Stadium. Ron Clarke found himself hanging on to a stick that was burning a mixture of magnesium and aluminium flakes and dropping clumps of material onto the track around him. It was the sort of fuel technology that left lots of room for improvement.
Each successive summer games - Moscow, Los Angeles, Atlanta - have seen similar 'cigarette lighter' torches where fuel is stored under pressure as a liquid and burnt as gas to produce flame. The torch from Atlanta used propylene - a relatively expensive hydrocarbon. With high amounts of carbon, it yielded a bright flame but also lots of smoke.
The Australian designers set out to find a similar sort of fuel but without the abundant soot - a known carcinogen. Jordan Parham, a postgraduate student at the Department of Mechanical Engineering spent many hours testing the torch. Image: University of Adelaide. For the torch, a range of candidate fuels and mixes were considered by a joint team from the Turbulence Energy and Combustion Group at the University of Adelaide and local company, Fuel and Combustion Technology.
The aim was to retain the luminosity of the flame but bring down excess carbon in the flame to reduce smoke. The fuel had to be readily available and able to be stored at less pressure than the propylene to allow use of a standard, lightweight canister. This blend could be stored under light pressure as a liquid and burnt as a gas at atmospheric pressure. The mix burns extremely cleanly producing only just enough soot to produce a bright yellow flame.
Once the fuel had been determined, it was up to the engineers to come up with a way to burn it from the top of a tube in such a way that it would be consistent, reliable and safe under any conditions. The problem with this design is that energy required to convert the liquid to the gas has to be drawn from the fuel and the canister itself.
The same principle applies to an ordinary BBQ gas bottle. While the BBQ heats up, the gas bottle gets colder. Frost appears on the outside as the moisture in the air freezes against cold metal. In a torch, the dropping temperature also drops the pressure inside the canister so as the fuel is expended the flame gets smaller.
It was therefore necessary so to organise the relay that while capturing the imagination of the public and the spirit of the Olympic torch, the cost would not be prohibitive. For the XI Olympiad, the torch holder was made of stainless steel and the burner element was a magnesium candle.
As this had a burning time often minutes at maximum, to ensure ample time at each take-over point, the runners covered only about one kilometre each, running for some three to four minutes. A longer burning time was decided on, to enable each runner to cover two miles three kilometres on the flat and thus reduce the number of torches.
The Fuel Research Station of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research was asked to design a suitable container and to recommend a fuel. A metal canister, containing a solid fuel which was already in commercial manufacture and reasonably cheap, met requirements. The holder for the fuel container had to be inexpensive and easy to make but, at the same time, it had to be of pleasing appearance and a good example of British craftsmanship.
This latter requirement was particularly necessary as the torches would be on view to the people of many countries during the Relay and afterwards would become mementoes for the runners who would carry them from Olympia to Wembley.
The Fuel Research Station started their experiments early in and in May of that year the first running trials were held. As a result of these trials it was decided to use hexamine in tablet form as the fuel, housed in a perforated canister. It had been agreed that the minimum burning time of each torch should be 15 minutes. As this requirement seemed to be the governing factor, the arrangement of air holes in the fuel canister was made so that, even in a strong wind, the fuel would last for that time.
To ensure economy of production, the size of tablets had to be similar to those in commercial production, but these were not large enough to ensure the required burning time if all in the fuel pack were lit on ignition. Eight tablets were therefore placed on a central rod, the bottom three being carried in a cup in the holder; as the top tablets burnt away, these were gradually fed up by a spring.
To keep the fuel, which readily absorbed moisture, dry under all weather conditions it had to be kept in an airtight pack which would burn completely, leaving no residue to choke the air holes in the canister. A thin nitro-cellulose casing to hold the eight tablets was specially made for the purpose. When the final prototype torch and holder in sheet metal had been made and tested by the Fuel Research Station, Mr.
Ralph Lavers, A. The torch, to be carried by the final runner in the Stadium, had a magnesium flame in order that it would be sufficiently bright to be seen across the Stadium, even in the brightest sunlight.
To carry the magnesium candle, a stainless steel holder was required. This also was designed by Mr. This year's "sakura pink" torch has a cherry blossom shape that merges five individual flames into one.
It was created by designer Tokujin Yoshioka, who said over email that it is a symbol of hope and "emotional recovery" from the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan a decade ago. The body of the torch is partly made from recycled aluminum used in the shelters that housed survivors following the disaster. Canada and USA have unveiled their Olympic uniforms and the internet -- of course -- has thoughts. An uneasy history. Though the Olympic flame has ancient roots, the relay itself is a relatively modern affair.
In fact, this symbol of international unity was in fact born out of nationalism -- it took place in Nazi Germany during the Summer Games. Over the course of 12 days, the torch was passed along, hand by hand, for almost 2, miles.
The first torch relay was held in Berlin in under Nazi rule. The event was designed to showcase Nazi Germany's growing power, and a young, blonde-haired runner, Fritz Schilgen, was selected as the final torchbearer for his Aryan appearance. Footage of the event was also highly orchestrated, with parts of the relay restaged and re-shot after the Games for the propaganda film "Olympia. Naomi Kawase's Olympic film promises to be like nothing you've ever seen before.
But organizers of the first post-war Olympics, in London, resurrected the event, securing its place as an ongoing tradition.
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