Waterproof bag with vent valve?

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Started the day in Tx at about 2000 ft and on the way up the Continental Divide, my waterproof bag (also air tight) blew up.

Is there a bag with a relief valve that would prevent that? Thanks.
 

T_C

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Did you squeeze the extra air out of the bag before rolling it down? I've been using dry-bags for many years and never heard of anyone blowing one up.

No, never saw a vent. Pelican cases used to have a screw out plug for vacuum purposes when they were transported in the hold of a plane, now it's a Gore-tex mebrane.
 

John OoSTerhuis

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By "blew up" did you mean burst/damaged? What brand and model?

I don't have any experience with the problem, having been up and down from altitude with my Ortlieb duffel many times (waterproof enough for me!), but saw this one after a quick search: http://www.drybags.com/product/12602-ZD.html

You may even be able to retrofit your bag with a DIY aftermarket valve. Good luck.

John
 
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By "blew up" did you mean burst/damaged? What brand and model?

I don't have any experience with the problem, having been up and down from altitude with my Ortlieb duffel many times (waterproof enough for me!), but saw this one after a quick search: http://www.drybags.com/product/12602-ZD.html

You may even be able to retrofit your bag with a DIY aftermarket valve. Good luck.

John
This is a duffel bag by Seattle Sports. Burst at a vulcanized seam, about 6 in long. Thinking same as you on the DIY. Roll down closure makes it difficult to evacuate all air.
 
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if there's a mfg. defect, Seattle sports will replace. fwiw I've never heard of a welded seam giving out..... so take some pics and follow up with a call.
 
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if there's a mfg. defect, Seattle sports will replace. fwiw I've never heard of a welded seam giving out..... so take some pics and follow up with a call.
Good info, Thx. Cannot remember if I bought direct or from REI but will follow up with SS as you suggested. No tear at all. No damage to surfaces. Clean seam separation. Could probably be welded again. Made a nice pop when it gave up, sounded like a gun shot.
 
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that sounds pretty weird, the difference in pressure between 2k and 10k is only a few psi. I'd expect to see a little bulge from the pressure change, but not a complete blowout, sounds like a defect and you should be covered under warranty if there is one. When inquiring about the warranty coverage ask them if it was designed to be able to be checked as luggage on a commercial airliner. If it can handle that, then what you did to it was nothing.
 

TPadden

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that sounds pretty weird, the difference in pressure between 2k and 10k is only a few psi. I'd expect to see a little bulge from the pressure change, but not a complete blowout......
Normally only a few psi increase assuming about a 20 degree temp drop as the alt increases 8k. Starting on a cool Texas morning, the temp could actually increase by 30 degrees or more as you climb into the afternoon resulting in a few more psi. I'm not that surprised an old seam might give.....
 
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Normally only a few psi increase assuming about a 20 degree temp drop as the alt increases 8k. Starting on a cool Texas morning, the temp could actually increase by 30 degrees or more as you climb into the afternoon resulting in a few more psi. I'm not that surprised an old seam might give.....
A 30F temp rise would only create about a 6-7% pressure change, starting at 14.7psia, so maybe an extra 1psi if all the trapped air actually changes by 30F. That thing should never burst.
 

TPadden

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A 30F temp rise would only create about a 6-7% pressure change, starting at 14.7psia, so maybe an extra 1psi if all the trapped air actually changes by 30F. That thing should never burst.
We still disagree - it's at least a 50 degree temp differential as the atmospheric pressure is decreasing. I've seen sealed, non carbonated, containers burst when atmospheric pressure is decreasing with a rising temperature. Proof in this case is it happened explosively, the seam didn't just "give".

Made a nice pop when it gave up, sounded like a gun shot.
To change the subject though ...... going to strap my VENTED dry bag on my bike to head out to DixieSToc (no altitude change) in the AM :D.
 
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We still disagree - it's at least a 50 degree temp differential as the atmospheric pressure is decreasing. I've seen sealed, non carbonated, containers burst when atmospheric pressure is decreasing with a rising temperature. Proof in this case is it happened explosively, the seam didn't just "give".
So 50F rise instead of 30F rise means maybe 1.5psi extra rise instead of 1.0psi rise, not really a big difference in the scheme of things, as the altitude pressure differential is about 4.5psi to start with. And its pretty rare to leave Texas at 50F at 2k feet and find somewhere at 10k feet where the temperature is 100F, so that 50F rise is quite a stretch. If you've seen containers burst, fine, I'm not arguing with that. But a $100 waterproof duffel bag should be able to withstand a few psi of internal pressure rise without bursting its seams, that's all I'm claiming.

Just consider packing the bag in a cold garage in the winter at sea level, at say 20F, then carrying it on a plane pressurized to 8,000 ft and about 70F ambient air temp. Same scenario, should the bag explode on the aircraft, I don't think so.
 
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TPadden

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So 50F rise instead of 30F rise means maybe 1.5psi extra rise instead of 1.0psi rise, not really a big difference in the scheme of things, as the altitude pressure differential is about 4.5psi to start with. And its pretty rare to leave Texas at 50F at 2k feet and find somewhere at 10k feet where the temperature is 100F, so that 50F rise is quite a stretch. If you've seen containers burst, fine, I'm not arguing with that. But a $100 waterproof duffel bag should be able to withstand a few psi of internal pressure rise without bursting its seams, that's all I'm claiming.
Nope you are still not getting the math right. There is a 4.5 psi differential with a relative constant temperature, actual 20 degree drop with 8k altitude increase ( 52 degrees to 31 degrees).

An actual 52 degrees at 2k to a very reasonable actual 81 at 10k would be a 50 degree relative raise.
 
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Nope you are still not getting the math right. There is a 4.5 psi differential with a relative constant temperature, actual 20 degree drop with 8k altitude increase ( 52 degrees to 31 degrees).

An actual 52 degrees at 2k to a very reasonable actual 81 at 10k would be a 50 degree relative raise.
I already conceded your 50F rise, and showed that it might make 0.5psi difference, not anything significant.

But since you mentioned math, let's discuss it in a bit more detail then. The 4.5 psi altitude pressure differential is based on the scientific definition of the standard atmosphere, which I suspect you are familiar with. Its defined as 59F at sea level and 14.7psia, and the temperature is expected to drop by approximately 3.6F per 1000 ft elevation gain. So as you say, 52F at 2k, but about 23F at 10k (rather than 31F).

As the temperature drops with altitude, the air density determines the rate of the pressure drop, and the temperature of the air (along with pressure) determines the density of the air. So if the air is significantly warmer than the standard atmosphere expectations, the pressure drop will be less than expected because the air is less dense than expected over the altitude rise. So, if you are operating in an environment where the temperature at 10k ft is 81F, and the standard atmosphere expects the temperature to actually be 23F, let's do a quick and dirty calculation to approximate things.

The average temperature from 2k to 10k would be expected to be (52+23)/2 or about 37F. The actual average temperature would be (52+81)/2 or 66F. To compute the difference in density we need to convert to degrees Rankine, so we add approx 460 to each of them. So the air is less dense than the standard atmosphere by the ratio of 497/556 or almost 12%. So the expected 4.5psi delta would actually be about 4.0psi, plus about 0.8psi difference because of the 30F actual temperature rise when the air went from 52F to 81F (541/512)*14.7 - 14.7.

So whichever way you want to calculate it, we're talking about 5psi difference, which isn't much. Since I can't claim to be an expert on waterproof bag design, I'm not saying with 100% certainty that the bag shouldn't explode, but it seems reasonable to expect it not to under these real-world conditions in which it could be used. As I thought about this a bit more I googled and found that regular birthday balloons can rise to 30,000 ft before they pop (there were studies done on this with respect to them interfering with aircraft traffic). I'd expect the bag to be more durable than a penny birthday balloon, but I could be wrong.
 
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