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Not sure if the reports of aluminum and ammonium based explosives were not co-involved or not...but... Ammonium nitrate functions as an oxidizer and the aluminum as the fuel...The use of the cheap ammonium nitrate makes it a replacement for TNT and the less stable nitroglycerin explosives...(kind of what everybody shoots at the range these days...Tannerite!) Ammonium nitrate and aluminum are relatively sensitive...But what I recall...it is susceptible to degradation over time...??? Just my 2c...
Pulsar- when dealing with explosives on fire, was taught to use the rule of thumb. Close one eye, Extend arm, raise thumb. If you cannot totally block sight of entire fire scene with your thumb, you are too damn close! HAZMAT troopers used to say their two most useful bits of equipment were a good pair of running shoes, and good binoculars.
This reminds me of an event way, way back maybe 1300's the Dutch were fighting a war and had their powder (black powder) stored in the town nearby. Right in the town amongst the houses. Two guys went in to get some powder . They were carrying candles so they could see. Yep the powder went off and blew most of the town away. One of the Dutch Masters, (the painters not the cigar) painted a picture depicting The damage from a distance. I happened to see it on the cover of JAMA when was working.
Does not need to be mixed with liquid fuel to be an explosive. Pretty sure the heat caused the stuff to give of a flammable gas. Similar to the Brownsville blast as it was confined in a cargo hold if I remember correctly.Open heat source, spark, welder, etc started the fire. May be a slow burn to start but once the gas from the burning AN gets to the right concentration it becomes almost like a BLEVIE. You have the initial fire below, flammable gas by product above and away she goes. Big explosion follows when all the tons of AN become air bore from first explosion.
And yes we were taught the rule of thumb was the only recourse for some hazardous situations.
Man you would have had to had a big thumb and long arm to be far enough away from that beast.
Well, most of what I posted was wrong. It was 1654 in Delft and 80,000-90,000 lbs of powder went off. And there was more than one painting. It was a birthday candle compared to what happened in Beirut yesterday.
Kannoneer, Not to mention the 9/12/40 blast at the Hercules powder plant in Kenvil, NJ (not far from Picatinny.) 297,000 pounds of smokeless powder went up. http://www.roxburynewjersey.com/hercules.htm
Comments
Ammonium nitrate functions as an oxidizer and the aluminum as the fuel...The use of the cheap ammonium nitrate makes it a replacement for TNT and the less stable nitroglycerin explosives...(kind of what everybody shoots at the range these days...Tannerite!)
Ammonium nitrate and aluminum are relatively sensitive...But what I recall...it is susceptible to degradation over time...???
Just my 2c...
Combat Vet VN
D.A.V Life Member
Gen. Hatcher mentions it in Hatcher's Notebook.
Chme , we would use the rookies sometimes . Send them in to check things out . If they survived it was safe to try to go in and do something
A buddy of mine was EOD in the army . He always said if you see me running feel free to join me cause stuff is about to happen