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 ...
AN by itself has an r value of about .9 ( TNT=1.0).
So if we assume that some decomposed iot create a
deflagration situation, assume 2.5 MT of AN at .9 would equate to around 2.2 kt yeild.
Of course, perhaps after 6 years of poor storage much more may have been contaminated etc.
Jewbacca wrote: “It also looked like a strangely slow explosion. I’ve seen my share of true HE explosions, and the wave is much faster.”
Isn’t ammonium nitrate considered a ‘low explosive’?
I’m trying to figure out why it was stored there, and that way, in the first place.
out of sight out of mind
Israel decided to help Hezbollah make IEDs for the day.
Before the blast, someone undoubtedly said “oh $hit!”
“It also looked like a strangely slow explosion.”
That’s how fertilizer goes when used as explosive. Much lower velocity and works really well as a lifting type charge. Like in open pit mining where they use it taking down sections of wall. Works very well rather than the shattering effect of the super vigh velocity HE.
Fireworks?
The London Daily Telegraph is reporting that a Russian businessman declared bankruptcy during an unscheduled stop of a ship from Georgia to Mozambique in Beirut and its been sitting there for over six years. Apparently the authorities have been repeatedly warned by Port Officials that it was a grave danger but nothing was done.
“Its been sitting there for over six years.”
Correct. Rule: a small error in the beginning leads to a thousand errors at the end. Greek philosophers.
Small error: storing a large quantity of fertilizer.
Big errors: many buildings, such as a hospital, are destroyed in Beirut. Sad. Predictable.
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After seeing the blast video,
I looked up the Hiroshima blast radius and the Murrah Building destruction.
Murrah was a firecracker compared to this.
There’s another video “out there” that was taken closer to the fire. Before the “big” explosion there were a whole series of small explosions in that fire that sounded and looked very much, from my experience, like Ordnance “cooking off”.
Energy remains the same - effects due to how energy is applied is what changes.
There was a fire in an adjacent warehouse that had fireworks stored in it. If you look closely at the video you can see them popping off..............
There was a fire in and adjacent warehouse where fireworks were stored..................
Yeah. It just extends the range of damage if you detonate at altitude. I’m struck by how the silos were protected by the effect of the crater wall directing the blast upward.
Yep - massive power always creates some anomalies.
Went through a tornado on Altus AFB in the ‘80s and the top floor of our squadron building was laid open like a doll house - roof and wall along one side gone - conference table was in place with chairs around it and folders/phones still on the table.
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