Comments by "Roger Smith" (@rogersmith7396) on "Cordite and Poudre B - Why things start exploding at just the wrong time" video.

  1. NO3 is over oxygenated and readily gives up the O which is the oxidizer for the reaction.
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  2.  @francoistombe  The distinguishing feature of NH4NO3 is that it is both an oxidizer and a fuel. It is a lower power explosive often used in mining. AMPHO.
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  3. Something seems to be wrong with our bloody ships today. As 10,000 guys go flying to the heavens.
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  4.  @timengineman2nd714  As a hot rodder I always thought this was a bad idea. I worked in an analysis lab where we used N2O2 to boost flame temperature for analysis of refractory elements like Calcium. It would run with propane I think at 5000 degrees and the flame would definitely heat the room up. Had to use a special Stainless steel burner. An auto engine with aluminum pistons and heads can't take this kind of heat. Its pretty much guarenteed blown engine. A turbo on the other hand does'nt increase temperature but produces more BTUs.
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  5. They bought tons of dirty ammo from a low dollar supplier. Maybe millions of dollars. Who gets the blame for that?
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  6. In rockets/jets you get the phenomina of recombination of elements in the exhaust stream. Elements dissociated in combustion recombine in the exhaust as it cools and it is an endotropic process sucking heat out and lowering engine performance. This is why methanol and water injection were used to cool the combustion down to where the elements would'nt dissociate in the first place thus increasing engine performance.
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  7.  @allangibson8494  In upgrading from black powder they tried peroxycholrates. Turned out they were highly prone to detonation. The recent massive explosion in Henderson NV. was the result of some compound containing peroxychlorates which every one thought was safe as milk. Took out about half a square mile. They were storing tons of the stuff in a warehouse.
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  8.  @allangibson8494  Have watched several boats here at the marina blow up from gasoline fumes. At my age I'm staying away from things that go boom. Had a friend in high school who tried to light a pilot light on his furnace. It blew and he had serious burns.
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  9.  @timengineman2nd714  My 70 Eldorado 500 CI 400 HP bus like torque is 10.25:1 leaded gas. Of course I just use 87 no lead with reduced advance. Back in the day I always put 95 octane in moms. 98 was available. I think the highest factory I ever heard was 11:1 and that was rare like in top of the line Corvette. I shaved about a quarter inch off my TR 6 head to give 10.25 to one. Also use 87 octane. My boats 3 cylinder diesel is 22:1. Typically with too much you get holes blown in the top of pistons. Forced inductioin too. Greggs Airplanes has a lot of information on high power WWII engines. 3000 HP Bearcats. I think the B 36s recips were around 3500 HP. They thought they could get more with exhaust supercharging but then the jets came in and recips went bye bye.
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  10.  @timengineman2nd714  My turbo Saab runs at 9:1 compression with 10 psi US, 11 Psi Europe. Full warranty. I consider that to be good. It also adjusts for octane rating of the gas which is why the Europeans get higher boost. It has a knock sensor too. I see some hot rodders are running high compression and higher boost like 10:1 and 15 psi. I think they use 100 octane racing fuel. One of the OKC Street Outlaws was running 27 psi. I'm sure top fuel dragsters go balls to the wall but they are ready to replace engines after one run. My Saab also has the crank of a V8 which is gross overkill for a 2 liter 4.
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  11.  @francoistombe  I watch a lot of mine exploration vids. Every once in a while they go into a mine and find a ton of the stuff in bags just laying there. I am not going into a mine no thanks. They were blasting rock here and they told me they used a pourable liquid. Threw rocks all over the place and damaged my car and several buildings. Dealing with that was a pain in the ass.
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  12. What of Bay City TX. Halifax?
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  13.  @oldtugs  Its not a peer reviewed PhD thesis. Its Youtube. Deal with it.
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  14. John Wayne, "The War Wagon".
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  15. Corn. Stabilized with pork.
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  16. Quantities are limited and don't you have to sign for them? At one time I was into home brew composite rockets and I bought NaNo3 in 50 pound bags. Sulfur at the flower store. I doubt that would happen anymore.
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  17.  @RMJTOOLS  Sugar burns real well and smoothly. Obviously pipe bombs are easy to make. The hardest part of a rocket is the nozzle which must take 5000 degrees. Also if you use a hollow core you can get 2000 psi on the chamber which requires something pretty strong at high temperature. Having worked in fertilizer production a lot of it is liquid suspension but the guy across the street from me buys several tons of dry to put on his pastures. Its another instance of something being benign or hazardous depending on who is using it. A lot of fertilizer is anhydrous ammonia gas sprayed on fields. They mainly try to keep the number of tractor passes to a minimum to minimize expenses so they will put seed, fertilizer, and weed killer in the same mix and spray the field once.
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  18.  @RMJTOOLS  Used WF and red fuming nitric at 88% in the lab all the time. No problems except it would turn my finger tips yellow which took time to wear off. Sulfuric is not good but hydrochloric is worse. Bromic will poison you with one wiff. Always in the fume hood. You take the cap off the bottle and you start chocking. The most powerful stuff we used was chromic acid which is also radiator cleaner. Some droplets would get on me and then water would hit your clothes during washing and your clothes would look like swiss cheese. Even polyester pants which were in vogue then. Ruined quite a bit of clothing with chromic. The rest are pretty pud. The problems start when you go above 90% nitric. It then starts to get explosive. Rocket fuel. Also used metallic sodium and antimony which are very dangerous. Oh and the lab next door used hydroflouric acid and there are few containers which can hold it. They used teflon. Really bad stuff. DOD investigated using it as rocket fuel. Zip fuel. Flourine will oxidize oxygen which is why they are trying to get rid of flouro carbons in AC units. Takes out ozone, triatomic oxygen.
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  19.  @allangibson8494  For example, ammonium nitrate is commonly used as fertilizer even though its explosive. I doubt farmers are even aware of this.
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  20. Or call the FBI. They know about this stuff and are very helpful.
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  21. Nitric acid is actually red/orange. If you work with it it turns your skin yellow.
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  22. Hiram Rickover was the main expert on the Maine. It is not entirely known but the most credible explaination is a coal dust explosion in a bunker.
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  23. Its why Arnold and Chuck don't make action adventure movies about scientific research. And why people don't become science majors. The pay is not great either. BS Biology/BA Chemistry here.
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  24. Black powder burns at something like 4500 degrees F. Even if it flashed against skin it causes major burns. See 4th of July USA. Modern explosive manufacture is highly automated but there are still fires/explosions/deaths. See Henderson, NV.
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  25. "Guns of Navarone". Watched it last night. Kaboom. That David Niven was such a jokester.
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  26. Its hazardous. They should wear Air Cubs. Affects the cardio vascular system. Vaso dialator.
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  27. Detonation is super sonic.
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  28. I was looking for 600 grit Al powder but it was only available in 600 pound quantities.
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  29.  @RMJTOOLS  I thought legal powder purchases were limited in quantity. I doubt you can buy a dump truck full.
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  30.  @RMJTOOLS  Model rockets use guanidine nitrate, originally bat guano which is lower powered and burns less hot. If you look at one of the nozzles it is still a ceramic which can take the short burst of high temperature flow. 2000 psi is the maximum pressure I have heard of and I believe that is what the space shuttles liquid fuel rockets operated at. That is about how up to date I am. Model rockets could operate at much lower pressure. I would still think at least 500 psi. With carbon fiber filiment windings a high pressure and light weight chamber could be formed. But the propellant grain in a solid fuel rocket will still be subject to the pressure and you don't want cracking or breakage as this will give a catastrophic rise in pressure and a blow out. I would guess an air to air missle is a pretty high tech gizmo. Back in the day I thought anhydrous ammonia would make a pretty good rocket fuel maybe with high concentration nitric acid. The Titan ICBM used nitric acid. Its bad stuff to inhale. Sort of like chlorine gas used in WWI.
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  31.  @RMJTOOLS  The hypergolics NASA use Unsymetrical di methy hydrazine are highly toxic. Nerve gas. When the shuttle landed no one could get out until a sniffer truck certified there was no fumes coming off the engines. I think there is some sort of metalic component that can be added to certain fuels to make them hypergollic but its beyond me. I wanted to use amonia as a hydrogen source and Nitric acid as an oxidizer and make them hypergolic. But I eventually grew up.
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  32.  @allangibson8494  Thats why we could'nt store flourine in glass. Go right through it like water in cardboard. I wonder if they use it to etch glass.
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  33.  @RMJTOOLS  The reason KNO3 is not used is because it undergoes a phase change if I can remember at 37 degrees. It will change size and crack the grain. My guess your model rockets would be rough handling or cheap construction. The space shuttles solid rockets had something of a similar problem causing them to explode. A cored solid rocket can be packed with a igniter of some kind which causes the entire grain length to burn increasing power. A star shape core is common.
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  34.  @mahbriggs  I am thinking there is a Federal registry to buy so you leave a paper trail. And the quality of home made stuff would be much lower.
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  35.  @mahbriggs  Part of my post is that commercial powder is highly evolved to leave less residue and not acid etch gun barrels. It has a scavenger which removes most deleterious products of combustion giving much longer gun life. Also it is much more uniform in quality giving repeatable bullet performance. Probably less smoke too. Yes I have made composite propellants in the basement. I set one rocket motor off with a bucket of water nearby and surprisingly to me when I tossed it into the water to kill it it kept burning. Mom was'nt home at the time thank god. Nitrates are what they call stink bombs. I had to use match heads to ignite it. What most don't know is the mix I used required 800 F to ignite. Kind of a safety factor. Back in the day you could buy dynamite at hardware stores. Probably not a good idea. I know the Marine sniper team always hand loads their rounds to give better performance over commercial bullets. Mixed acid nitration is extremely easy. What Nobel discovered was the percent of nitration was critical. Any thing over I think 15% results in immediate explosion on contact with air. He blew up lots of factories and workers before he developed adequate quality control. So doing mixed acid in the basement is a really bad idea. The linters have to be quenched with copious amounts of water before 13% nitration. Then when you pull it out of the water if it does'nt immediately blow the house up you know you have succeeded.
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  36.  @allangibson8494  The wierd thing about the article I read was they all thought the stuff was completely safe. Maybe even no sprinklers in the warehouse. Safe as milk.
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  37.  @absalomdraconis  The guy across the street from me has it delivered in 6 ton trailers which he tows across his fields with a tractor. He makes a phone call and they bring it out.
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  38.  @Fulcrum205  As I believe I said elsewhere nitrous doubles the combustion temperature and the parts just can't take it. Turbos and SC increase heat flow in btu but at the normal temp.
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  39. Sugar works good too. See grain dust explosions.
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  40.  @oldtugs  So wait a year or two before putting out a vid?
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