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The cooker and its canister were provided to an NZ importer of the appliance. The photos in the report provided by the appliance supplier show a CRV style canister which has vented. Venting occurs when a CRV canister is overpressured and the expanding gas physically deforms the neck of the canister. This deformation exposes holes which allow the canister to vent in a controlled manner. This is a safety design that allows the gas to vent rather than the canister rupture completely with a resulting explosion and fireball.
The physical deformation of the canister was unlikely to be due to a material fault but instead from overheating. The user was cooking on a 25 cm frying pan. Although this is within the size limit for this cooker, if it had been placed in an offset position over the canister compartment, it may be the source of the overheating.
WorkSafe Energy Safety determined that there was no further investigation required and closed the case.
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