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Beirut Blast: How Many Kilotons?
BattleSwarm Blog ^ | August 5, 2020 | Lawrence Person

Posted on 08/05/2020 12:32:04 PM PDT by C19fan

Yesterday a massive explosion ripped through Beirut, Lebanon from the city’s port:

Sometimes you do calculations and get a result that you know must be wrong, and you report them anyway so others can spot your errors. Reports had the explosion shattering windows 10 kilometers away, and doing damage to the Beirut airport, so I set out to calculate the explosive yield using the Nukemap, based on shattering windows at the airport (the 1 psi overpressure ring) and ignoring radiation effects. (The nukemap interface is far more user friendly than the “Nuclear bomb Effects Computer” at the back of Samuel Glasstone’s The Effects of Nuclear Weapons.)

(Excerpt) Read more at battleswarmblog.com ...


TOPICS: Science
KEYWORDS: ammoniumnitrate; beirut; blast; lebanon
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1 posted on 08/05/2020 12:32:04 PM PDT by C19fan
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To: C19fan
I misread the title as “How Many Klintons” and got excited for a second.
2 posted on 08/05/2020 12:36:59 PM PDT by decal (I'm not rude, I don't suffer fools is all.)
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To: C19fan

I read through the article and the level he came up with was 1.98 kt.


3 posted on 08/05/2020 12:39:12 PM PDT by hoagy62 (DTCM&OTTH)
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To: C19fan

—I’ll stick with my tagline—


4 posted on 08/05/2020 12:40:44 PM PDT by rellimpank (--don't believe anything the meda or government says about firearms or explosives--)
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To: C19fan

About two.


5 posted on 08/05/2020 12:41:18 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion or satire. Or both.)
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To: C19fan

Do we know what caused the blast yet?


6 posted on 08/05/2020 12:41:45 PM PDT by thefactor (yes, as a matter of fact, i DID only read the excerpt)
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To: C19fan

CNN reports it was 2,750 metric tons of ammonium nitrate. Let’s say AN and TNT are equivalent in energy/weight (they aren’t). So 2750 metric tons is 2.750 kilotons.


7 posted on 08/05/2020 12:42:33 PM PDT by SpaceBar
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To: C19fan

Does it differentiate between a ground blast and an overhead blast? I would think the latter would break windows a lot further away.


8 posted on 08/05/2020 12:45:23 PM PDT by gundog ( Hail to the Chief, bitches!)
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To: hoagy62

Which is pretty close to 2700 tons (2.7kT) of explosive Ammonium Nitrate................


9 posted on 08/05/2020 12:45:42 PM PDT by Red Badger (To a liberal, 9-11 was 'illegal fireworks activity'...........................)
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To: thefactor

Some say a welder................


10 posted on 08/05/2020 12:46:20 PM PDT by Red Badger (To a liberal, 9-11 was 'illegal fireworks activity'...........................)
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To: C19fan

the lying media said ‘contrary to what Trump claimed’

Trump didn’t claim anything- he said ‘from everything I’ve been told, they say it’s a bomb’

The media wanted to make out like Trump was lying about the blast- but Trump never claimed anything- He just repeated what experts were telling him=-


11 posted on 08/05/2020 12:46:31 PM PDT by Bob434
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To: C19fan

Check this Twitter video and see the sparkles in the fire and smoke at the bottom just seconds before the blast. You must look closely............

https://twitter.com/borzou/status/1290675854767513600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1290675854767513600%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fstory%2Fnews%2Fworld%2F2020%2F08%2F05%2Fbeirut-blast-7-different-angles-widely-filmed-due-prior-smoke%2F3297518001%2F


12 posted on 08/05/2020 12:47:44 PM PDT by Red Badger (To a liberal, 9-11 was 'illegal fireworks activity'...........................)
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To: thefactor

Thought I saw something of those careless welders nearby. We used AN when I worked at a gypsum plant in NM years ago to bust up the gypsum rock walls. They could have just gone down to white sands..............................


13 posted on 08/05/2020 12:48:58 PM PDT by rktman ( #My2ndAmend! ----- Enlisted in the Navy in '67 to protect folks rights to strip my rights. WTH?)
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To: hoagy62

Such an amazingly high number, at 1.98 kilotons that’s getting into the range of small nukes. Hiroshima was 15 kilotons, this is 13% of the blast energy of Hiroshima.


14 posted on 08/05/2020 12:49:57 PM PDT by Texan Tory (Laissez rouler les bons temps!)
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To: hoagy62

I think that’s right. .95 conversion rate to TNT.

I suspect a lot of it was dispersed and didn’t blow up.

It also looked like a strangely slow explosion.

I’ve seen my share of true HE explosions, and the wave is much faster.


15 posted on 08/05/2020 12:50:18 PM PDT by Jewbacca (The residents of Iroquois territory may not determine whether Jews may live in Jerusalem)
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To: Bob434
Trump didn’t claim anything- he said ‘from everything I’ve been told, they say it’s a bomb.

I noticed that right away too. Fox News joined the chorus.

16 posted on 08/05/2020 12:53:28 PM PDT by luvbach1 (I hope Trump runs roughshod over the inevitable obstuctionists, Dems, progs, libs, or RINOs!)
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To: Red Badger

Somehow, watching that blast never gets old.

It’s amazing how FAST it went.


17 posted on 08/05/2020 12:54:55 PM PDT by metmom ( ...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith....)
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To: C19fan

Bookmark


18 posted on 08/05/2020 12:55:21 PM PDT by Southside_Chicago_Republican (The more I learn about people, the more I like my dog.)
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To: C19fan

This 2,700+ tons of AN (in super-sacks) has been in this warehouse over 6 years. What was so special about yesterday that it went off?


19 posted on 08/05/2020 12:57:54 PM PDT by umgud
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To: umgud
This 2,700+ tons of AN (in super-sacks) has been in this warehouse over 6 years. What was so special about yesterday that it went off?

I'm trying to figure out why it was stored there, and that way, in the first place.

20 posted on 08/05/2020 1:14:10 PM PDT by BerryDingle (I know how to deal with communists, I still wear their scars on my back from Hollywood-Ronald Reagan)
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