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Explosions in Tianjin, China

Belz... said:
No **** ?

Did you really feel the need to be _that_ pedant in a thread NOT about nukes?
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well, it was YOU who said it was "nothing" compared to a nuke. So, it seems when you think of "nukes" you think of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and even larger nukes.

So I was pedantic to reinforce the fact nukes can be MUCH smaller than Hiroshima and Nagasaki and will still be defined as nukes.

And thus, the Tianjin explosion CAN be compared to a nuke (a small one) in explosive terms. Of course, there is no radiation... on the other hand, Tianjin explosion probably released tons of toxic chemicals in the area.


that 100 meter diameter crater btw is as big as most of the craters at Area 10 nuclear testing area at Nevada... the largest crater there being a 400 meters diameter crater created by an underground 100 kiloton thermonuclear device.
 
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The BLU 82 was conventional bomb with a lot more blast power than some tactical nukes that I am familiar with.

That's quite a mess the Chinese have to clean up.
 
Here's some new info:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...14b669-de26-4b47-aa57-b2ea844de25b_story.html

The death toll has risen to 114, with more than 700 people injured and another 70, mostly firefighters, still missing.
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So, two more officially dead, but only 70 still missing instead of 95.

And more on the amounts of chemicals:

Chinese officials have yet to say conclusively what caused the blasts but have acknowledged that there were dozens of types of chemicals on site, including a reported 700 tons of sodium cyanide, 800 tons of ammonium nitrate and 500 tons of potassium nitrate.
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Confirms my suspicion that the figure "21 tons" of explosives that kept getting repeated in the media was far too low. Since there were two explosions, maybe the first, smaller one was the potassium nitrate and the second bigger one was the ammonium nitrate? We know there was a fire before the explosions. That's why the firefighters were there. The same was true in West Texas.
 
Would it help if there was a rule that only one type of dangerous chemical could be stored in bulk in any one building? That building could be marked as holding that chemical. If there was a fire the first firefighters arriving could see that it held that chemical and know how to fight a fire in that building. Some chemicals you need to keep water away from them. The Chinese firefighters learnt this the hard way. The classic one is sodium (and the others in that group), but there are plenty of others.
 
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Puppycow said:
Here's some new info:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...14b669-de26-4b47-aa57-b2ea844de25b_story.html



So, two more officially dead, but only 70 still missing instead of 95.

And more on the amounts of chemicals:



Confirms my suspicion that the figure "21 tons" of explosives that kept getting repeated in the media was far too low. Since there were two explosions, maybe the first, smaller one was the potassium nitrate and the second bigger one was the ammonium nitrate? We know there was a fire before the explosions. That's why the firefighters were there. The same was true in West Texas.
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Actually, it seems there was a fire-station right next door.:boggled:

Hans
 
Is it possible that what is being shown as "the crater" is just where the water happened to pool and one of the blue buildings (from the google photo above), or perhaps both, is where the actual chemicals were stored?


There doesn't seem to be a place to store anything in the, admittedly old, google maps photo.
 
Puppycow said:
...
And more on the amounts of chemicals:
...
Confirms my suspicion that the figure "21 tons" of explosives that kept getting repeated in the media was far too low. ...
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I've said it at least twice before, but I'll happily say it again:

The actual content of the report that had the "21 tons" figure in it was plausibly correct - its straightforward interpretation as "21 tons of explosives exploded" is very wrong.

Here's why:
The Chinese earthquake-seismic-whatever organisation issued that number. It was a translation of the energy of the seismic event that they registered with seismographs. seismographs measure ONLY seismic energy, no other type of energy. What they therefore measured was that part of the total energy that was transfered to the earth as seismic waves.
However, surface blasts don't couple well into the ground.
Only a small proportion of a surface explosion is transmitted into the ground.
Most of the total energy goes elsewhere - into the air.
It follows that the total energy of the blast event was a multiple of the seismic energy of 21 tons TNT equivalent.

I had offered a wild amateur guess, unencumbered by actual education or experience with explosives or seismology, that the total blast energy was an order of magnitude (i.e. factor roughly 10) higher than the seismic number, or on the order of 200 tons TNT equivalent.
I see now that this is roughly in line with both the reported amount of AP, and with the estimate from crater size given a few posts earlier.

I think we can state with some confidence now that the event was most likely on the order of 100 tons < Tianjin < 1000 tons.
 
What's interesting is that GZ appears to be right where the entrance/weigh station is for the trucks.

ETA: I just noticed that AcesHigh said the same thing above. So credit to AH.

A quick comparison to the Trinity blast photo shows that the Tianjin crater is roughly twice the size of the 100 ton calibration test-so 200 tons?
 
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Gawdzilla Sama said:
Nullifying their effectiveness? When I was on fire parties we mustered up away from the scene of the fire. Quick response is good if there's anybody left to respond. :boggled:
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I was thinking more about increasing their casualties.

Hans
 
Elagabalus said:
What's interesting is that GZ appears to be right where the entrance/weigh station is for the trucks.

ETA: I just noticed that AcesHigh said the same thing above. So credit to AH.
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I noticed that but I have no theory of why GZ us there.

if I liked conspiracy theories, I would say that trucks had just released crates with ammonium nitrate there and not even the deposit owners knew of it.

but I don´t like, so I am very curious why and how you would have 800 tons of ammonium nitrate in THAT space.


ps: there are tables to convert explosive power to TNT, and ammonium nitrate is about 0.42, although that depends on the ammonium nitrate quality... it can actually be as low as 1 gram = 0.35 grams of TNT, up to 0.55.
 
AcesHigh said:
I noticed that but I have no theory of why GZ us there.
if I liked conspiracy theories, I would say that trucks had just released crates with ammonium nitrate there and not even the deposit owners knew of it.

but I don´t like, so I am very curious why and how you would have 800 tons of ammonium nitrate in THAT space.


ps: there are tables to convert explosive power to TNT, and ammonium nitrate is about 0.42, although that depends on the ammonium nitrate quality... it can actually be as low as 1 gram = 0.35 grams of TNT, up to 0.55.
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I must be spending too much time reading here. I read the 'GZ', in this case, as George Zimmerman, and for a split second, wondered to myself, now how on Earth are they going to blame George Zimmerman for this one?

Then I realized 'GZ' was Ground Zero... :o
 
AcesHigh said:
I noticed that but I have no theory of why GZ us there.

if I liked conspiracy theories, I would say that trucks had just released crates with ammonium nitrate there and not even the deposit owners knew of it.

but I don´t like, so I am very curious why and how you would have 800 tons of ammonium nitrate in THAT space.


ps: there are tables to convert explosive power to TNT, and ammonium nitrate is about 0.42, although that depends on the ammonium nitrate quality... it can actually be as low as 1 gram = 0.35 grams of TNT, up to 0.55.
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I hesitate to say this but it does sort of work out if the original estimate of 21 tons is used. 21 tons is only one shipping container. We have an example of a truck loaded with approx. 4800 lbs of ammonium nitrate:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing

roughly 2.4 tons which "created a 30-foot (9.1 m) wide, 8-foot (2.4 m) deep crater".

And "Seismometers at Science Museum Oklahoma in Oklahoma City, 4.3 miles (6.9 km) away, and in Norman, Oklahoma, 16.1 miles (25.9 km) away, recorded the blast as measuring approximately 3.0 on the Richter scale".

Simply multiplying 2.4 tons by 10 gives us 24 tons (not quite 21 but close enough) and a 91 m. crater. Boom. Done.

I've looked at the photos and I can't deny that GZ is right at the entrance. One unfortunate truck (filled with ammonium nitrate) sitting at the entrance or at the weigh station when the fire broke out is all it took. Thoughts?
 
Mike! said:
I must be spending too much time reading here. I read the 'GZ', in this case, as George Zimmerman, and for a split second, wondered to myself, now how on Earth are they going to blame George Zimmerman for this one?

Then I realized 'GZ' was Ground Zero... :o
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I post a lot of thing from a tablet on my bed, and the damn auto-correct also makes things more difficult to understand...

read "why GZ WAS there" not "why GZ us there" :P
 
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