Fuel Air Explosives (FAE:s)

[xoo1246]

I find them rather impressive. As one theoreticly can get four times the energy out of gasoline as in TNT, offcourse over a larger time span. Any ideas about how one would aproach the problem of building a single event FAE? And nope, we aren't talking deflagration of the vapors, I'm in the right section. You will have to excuse my bad english.

/xoo1246

[0EZ0]

If we are talking small scale then u will find a PDF on the ftp. In the PDF is explained how to construct a FAE device use a regular soda bottle as your container for the fuel and fuel dispertion charge.
The PDF is called "Soda Bottle FAE".

[Madog555]

thats cool

im gonna DL that file

[ 01 March 2002: Message edited by: Madog ]

[xoo1246]

Thanks for the information 0EZ0 I will check it out before I say anything more.

/xoo1246

[xoo1246]

Back from reading. Well thanks again for the information, unfortunatley I had allready read that patent. That patent discuss how to disperse some fuel using a soda bottle and some det. cord. Thats the easy part. To detonate the fuel some 150 milliseconds later requires commercial blasting caps and some timing circuit. I was thinking about the single event type, maybe using some chemical to initiate an explosive(Has to survive the first detonation, then those two components are mixed), detonating the vapor cloud(preferably when the fuel is in balance with oxygen). Well I'm only dreaming, don't pay any attention.

/xoo1246

[ALENGOSVIG1]

Ah, speaking of chemicallly ignited fae's, i started a thread a couple months ago about chemically igniteing an fae. Its probally in the archive. also, i remmeber someone saying that a pirhana fluid explodes or ignites when in contact with acetone. mabe this could be used somehow in an fae.

[ 02 March 2002: Message edited by: ALENGOSVIG1 ]

[xoo1246]

Anyway, this project would be too dangerous to perform. If the stuff doesn't work it would turn into a chemical weapon and if it would work, there would probably be large amounts of toxic smoke.

[ALENGOSVIG1]

Well if pirhanna fluid really does explode/ ignite when contacted with acetone, the you would probally only need 10 ml or so. I cant see how 10 ml of H2SO4/H202 in a 6/1 ratio could cause a chemical weapon type of effect.

[xoo1246]

You are right, not a potent chemical weapon, still more dangerous than a common "whatever" charge. I had some idea about using HTH together with some flamable fluid. However none of our chemicaly initiated FAE:s would detonate(only the burster charge). What about if one could make the burster charge mix a primary explosive such as HTMD with some HTH(wouldn't that cause detonation?). If the HTH/HTMD was outside the fuel and the buster charge in the middle, maybe one could get the HTMD to survive the first detonation without getting a sympathic explosion/detonation of the HTMD. Well as usual I don't have a clue and I'm not chemist. Go ahead an flame my sorry ass.

/xoo1246 :(

[MacCleod]

Hey,xoo1246,there's a device in the 'Advanced Anarchist Arsenal' called a mothball bomb that might be what you're looking for.It's an implosion fae that doesn't use a secondary explosive,but rather uses a mix of copper oxide and aluminum powder to ignite the fuel cloud when the fuel/air ratio is just right.I believe the book was on the old forum ftp,not sure if it's on here yet.

[Mr Cool]

If you want a chemical ignition with practically no delay (IIRC HTH + fuel takes a while...), try chromium trioxide and ethanol. Instant flame.

[Lagen]

I tried chromyl chloride and ethanol. CrO2Cl2 is somewhat easier to make in concentrated form.

[vulture]

A drop of water on waterfree CoCl2 is sufficient to light most fuels.

[NoltaiR]

FAEs are truly an awesome way to destroy any sort of enclose when done right. I made two FAEs a few weeks ago using the old IM handbooks method of filling a tuna can 75% full with a HE (it recommends C-4 but seeing as how I don't have that laying around, I used 55:35:10 AN:AP:rc with a 5g initiator of AP:rc). A gallon-sized ziplock bag was filled with pressed flour (about 5 pounds) and set on the tuna can charge. This same procedure was done a second time, however the flour was substituted with a ziplock bag full of gasoline.

The IM handbook says to use it as is, but I wasn't so sure whether or not my explosion would have ignited the fuels (although I am most sure they would have anyways) so I filled styrofoam cups with KNO3/sugar/a little water and placed them on opposite sides of the room. This 'room' was made out of some old plywood and 2x4s that were rather carelessly hammered together. There were also some cut-up strips of roofing tin nailed on to the sides for added support. The room measured 12ft(l):12ft(w):8ft(h), which comes out to be 1152 sq. ft. Two of these rooms were made.

The first charge that was set off was the flour. The styrofoam cups were ignited (7 cups filled). The fuse was ignited and I quickly exited. There was a low explosion as the HE charge detonated and the walls shook slightly. A fraction of a second later there was a huge blast and a beautiful fireball lit up the area where the building was. One side of the building was blow away seperately while the other three sides and the ceiling still held together by a few remaining peices of tin. Everything was badly busted up and pieces of wood and metal were found 20 yards away although most of them had no burn marks on them.

After a while or so of thinking about how well the first charge went (although I would have been happier if all the sides would have blown apart equally), I got ready for the second one. I ignited the cups and ignited the fuse making sure not to accidently get near the ziplock bag of gasoline.. that would make a nasty mess if something went wrong and a premature explosion occured while I was making my exit. The initial blast went off and about one and a half seconds later the second blast went off. All the sides were blown apart and all of it was on fire. Not to mention the cloud of smoke that stuff made... Anyways it was badass.

Conclusions.. gasoline works better for destroying anything although if for some reason flour is the only thing available, it works well enough to be very satisfyable... and maybe even better if for some reason you did want to have such a cloud of smoke or if you wanted a clean blast rather than having the debris on fire.

[Demolition]

Thats about 3.5 meters in length X 3.5 meters in width X 2.5 meters in height.Thats a pretty big room. :) Do you think that they would of self ignited if the cups of KNO3 werent present?

I had a similar idea a little while ago about placing a zip-lock bag full of flour on top of a KMnO4 explosive just for a large fireball effect. :D Im certain that they would self ignite as the extremely large flash would ignite the flour.

BTW what does rc stand for?

[Jager]

Almost all organic material in the form of a dust cloud will ignite at temperatures below 500 oC. Cotton, plastics and foodstuffs such as sugar, flour and cocoa.

For vapor cloud explosion there is a minimum ratio of fuel vapor to air below which ignition will not occur. Alternately, there is also a maximum ratio of fuel vapor to air, at which ignition will not occur. These limits are termed the lower and upper explosive limits. For gasoline vapor, the explosive range is from 1.3 to 6.0% vapor to air, and for methane this range is 5 to 15%.

[nbk2000]

One would want to use the fuels with the widest combustion range as possible to ensure ignition.

Some fuels have a CR of only 2-3%. That's awfully small. And some have a CR of 40% or more. :D Those are the ones you want.

Of course, there's other considerations like availability, cost, toxicity, etc, that decide what fuels to use.

When fuels are ignited at the low end (lean) of their CR, they burn with explosive speed which causes walls to fracture (if brick or such), but without much heat damage to the interior.

At the high end (rich), they burn slower, but have more heat and "oomph", causing walls to be bulged or pushed out intact, and igniting interior contents.

[NoltaiR]

I might try out the FAE as described by the FTP file 'soda bottle FAE' although by reading it, I tend to think that this FAE would have to be elevated quite a bit off the ground (proportionately to the size of enclosure being used) to do much good. But the positive side to it is that it could be completely mobile as one singular piece, rather than as two or more such as the tuna can/bag of fuel would require. Also a self ignition switch could be improvised on the end of the fuse (such as something as basic as some matches wrapped in the striker part of the box) in case you are really planning on doing some raiding and you don't want to be looking around your pockets for a lighter when you could otherwise just give a quick pull and then run.

And BTW, 'rc' stands for rubber cement.. you would know this if you had read any of 'major' posts within the past few weeks or so.

[nbk2000]

I read EVERY post made here and I was wondering what "rc" meant too. It's not a common abbreviation like AN/NM/AP is here.

[NoltaiR]

edit: I meant if you read any of MY major posts within the past few weeks... I have done a lot of work on using glues and sealers that contain toluene as improvised binders for crystalline types of explosives

[RTC]

A good example of Noltair's "rc" is in the AP Putty topic.

[mark]

What were to happen if you used an actual pyro powder for the FAE? Like a bunch of very finley ground home made bp or kno3 sugar? Id imagine that they would have quite a deal more "umph!" to them than ordinary flour, and they would ignite eaier as well.

[NoltaiR]

He is correct.. and while talking about this, I have found a type of glue called 'shoe goo' which can be purchased at walmart which works better than rc if you use the following procedure that I have developed:

on a few sheets of newpaper, spread out a layer of your crystalline explosive.

On top of that squeeze out a fair amount of shoe goo (not sure about ratios, but probably about 60:40 of explosive:shoe goo by volume).
close the newspaper around it and press with your fingers on the outside of the paper for about a minute or two.

Open back up and if there is too much shoe goo visible, then add more explosive and press again. If there is too much explosive and it tends to fall off, then just carefully scrape off any excess, do not try and leave it because it will only cause cracks in the final product.

Spread the mix out over the paper with an old knife or something similar.

Let it dry for a couple days or until fairly hard (yet still slightly moldable).

Scrap your mix off the paper and press it into a shape of your choice (I usually pack it into a small boxes that I get at my store from the jewelry department to make a cube shape about 2in x 2in x 2in).
Let it harden for another day or until completely hard (there should be NO moldability). A good way to test this is to try to bunch a toothpick through it, if you can do this then let it sit for another day.

When completely hard, use a fairly intense primary charge (for 100g of the shoe goo/AP mix I used a 20g charge of AP/rc).

The density will be quite incredible and the shockwave it produces was enough to blow a wagon (the small red ones that little kids pull around.. weighs about 30 pounds) 10 feet in the air and put a depression in the bottom of it 7 inches deep.

Now don't be discouraged if this doesn't work the first time.. it wasn't until the third time that I made a charge that I had complete detonation (an incomplete detonation is due to not having fully dried it and not having a sufficient primary charge).. if it doesn't detonate completely you will just hear a light explosion and the center of it will simply burn.

[mark]

No offense, but that sounds positiveley dreadful as far as saftey is concerened. A massive fuck all cap like that will take your arm off at the elbow most likely. Why mix in the shoe glue at all if it makes it harder to detonate? For higher density? Dosnt a 20 gram cap make it dense enough when it goes off?

[nbk2000]

20 grams isn't a detonator, it's a mini-handgrenade!

Ever thought about trying the shoe-goo to make flexible sheet explosive similar to det-flex? That has all kinds of useful properties too.

[mark]

What is det flex? Like an explosive creditcard material?

[nbk2000]

Det-flex is a sheet explosive that you can cut to any shape, like paper.

Used for making saddle or diamond charges, rings, and other things. It has its uses.

[mark]

Sounds nifty.

[cutefix]

Detaflex is the civilian type sheet explosive that is mainly PETN based containing from 65-85% of crystalline explosive .Military grade are olive drab colored and can be made either PETN or RDX .The binder contains nitrocellulose and other energetic plasticizers aside from Polyteraflouroethylene.Therefore in military type sheets the main HE is usually slightly more than 60 %.
There are some sheet explosives formulation similar to C-4.

[Azazel]

if a fuel is super heated and ignited you get a nice explosion... therefor if you super heat a fuel without allowing any combustion to occur, vaporizing the fuel THEN igniting it you get a good explosion. To do this just contain fuel in a solid pressurized container/system which has high power heating element or something like thermite in the centre of the system... electronicaly ignite the thermite so it heats up the fuel... the pressure of the fuel increases. Eventually the sealed container ruptures spilling out vaporized fuel which mixes with oxygen. A small spark... boom very very very nasty fireball... knocks down walls and shit...

[xoo1246]

If you "super heat" the fuel, it would probably ignite in contact with air, without your spark, ofcourse this depends on the amout of fuel, the fuel itself, and the heat added to the fuel.

[Al Koholic]

For an even nastier fireball...use a shockwave to ignite the cloud of fuel/air. Wayyyyyyyy better than a spark.

[VX]

Expanding on this idea: If a large charge of primary was placed into a container of petrol and the primary was detonated... would this result in a very large FAE or just a lot of petrol everywhere?

Edit: Whoa man that sounds kinda kewl. :( .

<small>[ April 16, 2002, 06:02 PM: Message edited by: VX ]</small>

[xoo1246]

There seems to be some various opinions on that mather.
Military FAEs works like this:
Container with fuel has a so called burster charge placed in it,
When the burster charge detonated, it spreads the fuel into the surrounding air (no flame, no nothing). After that secondary charges detonates in that cloud, now containg oxygen, therfore detonationable(if concentration allows it).
When the burster charge detonates, the fuel isn't igniteable, it has no oxygen in it. If the detonation could heat the fuel to it's ignition point it would burn when it comes in contact with the oxygen of the air. I don't belive a small burster charge would do that(previous statement). It might however be a diffrent story with larges charges, can't really comment on that.
Search some patent database and you should find some interesting information.

[EP]

The recently developed FAE's by the US are worth noting, but may be a bit out of reach.

Instead of a liquid fuel, they use a powder (or pellets?) of HE that is then detonated. It is said to be more reliable, especially in adverse weather, and most likely more powerful as well. Information is very scarce on these however...

[xoo1246]

Those are not really FAE:s, they are more of thermobaric weapons I belive, not that i mather much, some of them migh contain some fuels too.

[Al Koholic]

Right those are the thermobaric bombs you are talking about. I have heard they are basically an ammonium nitrate slurry explosive which is mixed with Al powder and then dispersed by a small (heh...not really that small) detonation. Upon the cloud formation, a secondary charge goes off and well....yeah.
I am highly interested in fuel/air bombs which are not explosive fuels by themselves. I believe the military uses hmmm....ethylene oxide? I think thats it. Anyway, its the same idea as the thermobaric bomb only with a normally non-explosive fuel instead. I believe an amateur can substitute anything which is highly flammable. Gasoline should work. In fact, I came up with an idea which I belive would work. A 5 gallon gasoline bottle which contains a 1 kilo charge of picric acid in the center of the bottle. This charge spreads the gasoline in a cloud and then a secondary charge of picric explodes about 3 - 4 meters away from the initial charge. This sends a shock through the gas and ignites the entire cloud at once. Could be EXTREMELY devestating.
Al

[EP]

Yes, I guess I should have made that clear. FAEs and the solid explosives device I mentioned are differnt kinds of thermobaric devices that use the same principal, but a different material to form the cloud.

[xoo1246]

The timing is the problem, you have to detonate the charges at the right moment, due to the fact that the fuel is only detonationable in certain amounts. Between x% to y%. If the concentration isn't right, the fuel will only burn. You would have to do some serious calculating and testing to manufacture one.
If you have some time and an eclosed area, you could use propane/butane, calculte the right amout for that area and then disperse the gas, without the use of explosions. Then set off a small charge to initiate the gas/oxygen mixture.

Edit: 5 gallons are around 20 liters, right?
I don't belive you would have to use that much explosives to disperse the fuel.
I might be wrong.

<small>[ April 17, 2002, 07:06 AM: Message edited by: xoo1246 ]</small>

[Al Koholic]

You might be right...it may be that less explosives are needed. However, I think the amount of explosives one were to use would alter the timing of the secondary charge quite a bit. With more explosive per litre of fuel, the fuel will be spread to a greater initial degree than with less explosives. This will surely alter the diffusion rate of the fuel and air. With an amount of explosives which is toward the high end of what is required to spread the fuel it might be that you will have more time to detonate the mixture due to the decreased rate of diffusion. However, you also start off with a lower concentration of fuel so the converse could also be true.
al

[xoo1246]

You would probably have to determinate this by several experiments on the container,explosive and the fuel you would be using. A high speed camera would help too. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> Maybe controlling the fireing of the charges from a laptop.
Once did a test with around one gram HTMD in a 1 liter bottle of water. The container was prefragmentated to break at certain points and then resealed. The cloud formed reached maybe 1.5-2 meters radius.
Although I dont belive 20 grams is enough to disperse 20 liters of fuel effectively for the purpose(far away from it). If one could capture the forming of the cloud, and the time it takes to reach a specific radius, one could calculate at what time the concentration (fuel/oxygen)is the right. What do you think? :p

[Al Koholic]

Yeah a high speed camera would be of GREAT value in determining what time interval to space the two charges at. I read a patent a while back about an FAE like this which used ethylene oxide as its fuel and a small dispersal charge. If I remember correctly, the interval for 3 litre volume was something like .6 seconds or something. Heres a good question...How do the FAE's like the one in Outbreak (movie) work? I think they were the first type used by the military as well and all they do is spray fuel out of a nozzle as a barrel of fuel falls on a parachute. Then a charge goes off and the whole cloud goes BOOM! However, the time interval is crazy due to the fact that they were spraying it as the barrel fell. I would think that just the slightest breeze would mess this type of device up. Unless they were using a fuel with an INCREDIBLY large flammability range...

[xoo1246]

Al Koholic:
That sounds strange, haven't actually seen it myself, seems weird.
I wouldn't trust any movie when they describe weapons systems, they tend to be fictious. Sounds like a dispersion system for chemical agents or something. Well, I don't know.

[Flake2m]

Xoo is right and wrong.
I am fairly new to the world of explosives and am still learning.
Anyway if the secondary charge on an FAE wasn't detonated at the right time, the fuel would only burn, however xoo has forgotten that the FAE would still require a large amount of oxygen to combust properly. The FAE would still "suck" all the oxygen out of the air so it could combust, creating a temporary vacuum and drawing more oxygen into the FAE.

One of the reasons why FAE's are effective is that they also deprive the surrounding air of oxygen.
In the gulf war when FAE's were used there were reports of soldiers lungs being burnt (or worse) due to the fact that the FAE would enter their lungs seeking out oxygen, making them effective on infantry. FAE's will travel down caves and mine shafts for oxygen. This also makes them effective at clearing out areas that conventional explosives aren't able to do.

--------------------

<small>[ April 18, 2002, 06:45 AM: Message edited by: Flake2m ]</small>

[xoo1246]

Flake2m: Yes, I still requires a lot of oxygen, would certainly be a devestating weapon, but if you get the fuel mixture to detonate (VoD around 1800m/s) you get a much higher overpressure than if the mixture burns. That's the point of trying to detonate the cloud.
(if the cloud is big enough it might do the DTD transition)
Since the Forum - FTP is down I uploaded a pdf to my FTP:
<a href="http://w1.478.telia.com/~u47804009/FAE.pdf" target="_blank">http://w1.478.telia.com/~u47804009/FAE.pdf</a>
If you haven't seen it before, you will probably find it usefull.

[Al Koholic]

It might make that transition without a HE charge if it was an EXTRMEMLY large cloud and had a perfect O2 balance. Flake2m brings up a good point about the FAE. In addition to what he describes (I have not read any literature which mentioned it but I can believe it) the FAE also burns up any oxygen in the immediate vicinity of the blast. Any survivors (had they not suffered ruptured internal organs) would be deprived of oxygen long enough to bring about asphyxiation. Brutal stuff.
The movie outbreak was about a deadly, extrememly contagious virus somewhere in Africa. The disease killed in like 12 hours or something of the sort with no cure. Released in a large population and it would have been over for that area. In the beginning of the movie there is a barrel floating down over this disease stricken aren in africa. Fuel is being sprayed in an aerosol fashion all the way down the chutes descent. The next thing you know, a square mile is basically demolished by the explosive force. Now, I do not know of any specific weapon system which acts in this manner but for some reason I seem to recall this being an older FAE type. I cant really remember now. Anyone else know of something like this or if it is even possible?

Oh I forgot to mention but I think the fuel was kerosene or something. Probably bull...but who knows...

<small>[ April 18, 2002, 04:07 PM: Message edited by: Al Koholic ]</small>

[NoltaiR]

Now this is probably just a bunch of crap, but my old chem teacher told me once that the national health administration has the authority to nuke a quarantined (spelling?) area if the percentage of people within are infected with the ebola virus rises above a certain point due to ebola's ability to travel through the air. I have never been sure whether to believe this or not and he told me it a couple years ago (and for some reason I held onto the memory). But maybe somebody could clarify whether this statement is true or not for me?

[Azazel]

i still think you should go for the superheated fuel idea... think about it, once its in contact with air there is no need to expand the fuel outwards because it is under so much pressure that once it is explosed to less pressure (1.01 atm) it will rapidly expand and fill up a large space in little time. Once this happens think of the room it is occuring in, as a giant piston... roof goes up, roof comes back down {laterz :) } ... seriously though, alot of pressure is exerted onto the walls of a room which this will happen so you can possibly tear down a house with one of these....

so then... go out and make some thermite, and find a metal gas bottle which can take a fair bit of pressure... remember you want the liquid fuel to super heat and increase in pressure, enough to rupture the canister containing it... if you cannot super heat it you will have nothing but a pool of burning fuel...

[rikkitikkitavi]

Noltair , I think your science teacher was just talking b-shit

Whats the point of nuking a isolated infested area?

Since it is isolated the patogens cant spread further.

Actually, you need a fucking large warhead(s) to make sure all patogens are incinerated,it is only within a kilometers radius or so that is completely vapourised even with 10 Mt (citybusters) warheads. Further away from ground zero the heatwave set things on fire but also destroys every building, blocking roads e tc making entrance to the area more difficult after.

To cover a major city f e x in USA, you need a quite a few of those to completely incinerate a area of some 10s sqkms.

Otherwise the blast will only spread them further. Not to mention the fall-out caused by large blasts, even airburst causes heavy contamination with large warheads. And that is a worse problem longterm, since ebola dies without a host, but the fall-out stays for atleast a generation.

better to let the virus do its work and go in and clean up afterwards :(

Outbreak was just a hollywood movie

/rickard

<small>[ April 19, 2002, 11:04 AM: Message edited by: rikkitikkitavi ]</small>

[xoo1246]

Once did a small test with a plastic container, ethyl alcohol and thermite, it gave off a pop and a small fireball was formed.
I might dream up a larger device, with a larger metallic container.
It is a huge difference between detonating fuel and burning fuel.

[Al Koholic]

Better be one hefty metal container to prevent the thermite from just melting through the container. This would give a less than ideal spread of gas due to the fact that the area where the thermite will be burning will be relatively small and weaker than the surroundings. Would create a kind of rocket effect with the hot gas. If you guys really like the superheated gas pressure bottle idea, then you could just get a canister of propane from walmart or something. Place this in a bucket full of KNO3 and sucrose and place it in a hole about a foot deep in the ground. Have a small fire burning near the end of the radius of the formed gas cloud and there you go.

[vulture]

A great FAE is carbonmonoxide, explosive range 12,5-74 vol%, ignition temperature 605C. Now that would be nice for a thermobaric bomb, if it doesn't explode, it acts as a chemical weapon..
Same thing goes for ethyleneoxide, explosive range 2,6-100 vol% <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" /> , ignition T 440C. Now this is strange, at 100% there's no oxygen left?
Ethyleneoxide is toxic and carcinogen with longterm environment effect.

Hydrogensulfide.4,3-45,5%...270C
hydrogen gas....4,0-75,6%...560C
Diethylether....1,7-36%.....180C
acetylen........2,4-83%.....305C
acetaldehyd.....4-57%.......140C
hydrogen cyanide.5,4-46,6%..535C
ethyleneglycol...3,2-53%....410C

<small>[ April 19, 2002, 12:03 PM: Message edited by: vulture ]</small>

[Anthony]

Azazel, you're idea won't work in the way that you describe. With a litre of gas at 100psi, it will expand and be at atmospheric pressure with 100litres of area. Even a small room has a volume of thousands of litres. The reason an FAE works is because when the fuel changes state, it expands to hundreds to times it's original volume.

You idea would work if you had something to ignite the expanding, escaped gas, but then you've only created another way to disperse it. Something that can be done with greater accuracy and much more discretely with an explosive charge.

[rikkitikkitavi]

ethylen oxide is similar to acetylen that is a very unstable compound which can sponaneously (or with some help) decompose exothermicaly into its elements... (CH)n + O2 .. thus not needing any oxygen.

But since it is very oxygn deficient mixing it with oxygen increases
combustion rate a lot.

/rickard

[xoo1246]

Therefore, fuels like acetylen would maybe be more suitible for the task than gasoline, only detonationable between 2 and 8%, very hard to accomplish.

How do you think one could disperse the acetylene? How sensitive is the gas to initiation?

Claming that thermite melts through everything in notime? If you use
Fe203 it acctually welds iron objects together,
not much melt-trough at all. The fuel would absorb much of the heat too.
I have tried thermite based on CuO, does almost no harm on stainless steel plate. I used extra CuO, trying to reduce the iron. Have you used loose thermite to cut through metal objects, show me some pictures of it.
Maybe it's only me, incapable of making thermite.

And a propane bottle heated to explode, would not even be in the same
class as a detonating FAE.
And I don't belive in the destructivity of "super" heated fuel bombs either. They are all L.E. devices.
Good for incendiary purposes and fireworks. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

Edit: Ebola, air born?

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">The Ebola virus is spread through close personal contact with a person who is infected with Ebola. Often, infection (in previous outbreaks) have occurred among hospital care workers or family members who were caring for an ill or dead person infected with Ebola virus. Blood and body fluids contain large amounts of virus, thus transmission of the virus has also occurred as a result of hypodermic needles being reused in the treatment of patients. Reusing needles is not an uncommon practice in developing countries, such as Zaire, Gabon, and Sudan, where the health care system is signficantly underfinanced.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">

<small>[ April 19, 2002, 06:33 PM: Message edited by: xoo1246 ]</small>

[Al Koholic]

Well...I was just explaining that the super-heated things wont work all that well is all. Of course a well mixed cloud would be worlds beyond something like a propane bottle.
Oh and in a sense...yes airborne. Ebola can remain active in the spittle from an infected individuals coughing or sneezing. Breathing in these particles (happens ALLLLLL the time even when only in normal conversation) will infect.

[Flake2m]

This might sound a bit kewlish but;

I read on another forum that you would have a device similar to an FAE if you take a 2-3 litre coke bottle, fill about 1/4 with metho or any volitile liquid that dosent melt coke bottles. Then you pressurise the bottle until it is about 60psi. You attach some sparklers to the side of the bottle and then light them. RUN

I haven't tried it, but my theory behind the device is this;
The sparklers melt the side of the coke bottle, and because the contents is under pressure, the contents will rush out of the bottle, atomised, and be ignited by the sparklers. BOOM

An FAE would probaly be more effective if the fuel was under pressure, because the fuel would disperse over an quicker = more power, though to do this, you could only use a liquid or gas.

[Project IGI]

It may work depending on what it's pressurised with. And you are indeed right, it does sound very k3wl.

[Anthony]

The coke bottle thing would spray burning fuel out of the hole melted in the side. I really doubt it would explode, or give a fireball.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">
An FAE would probaly be more effective if the fuel was under pressure, because the fuel would disperse over an quicker = more power
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">What does an explosive charge do if not pressureise whatever it is in or around?

[xoo1246]

Acctually, the idea sound like it has been taken from some "kewl manual". Pressurise a coke bottle with fuel and then burn holes in it with sparklers?
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">The sparklers melt the side of the coke bottle, and because the contents is under pressure, the contents will rush out of the bottle, atomised, and be ignited by the sparklers. BOOM </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">I don't wish to complain, but it seems as people from BombShock/WeirdPier are doing some infiltration.

If you are serious, trying to learn. Do yourself a favor, stop reading those manuals where the text looks like this:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">wELL fiRST oF alL... aS fAR as BOmBz SeE ouR eARLieR iSSUeZ thaT tELL thE
mAnY waYZ to MaKE BOmBz oUT of SuCH CreATuReZ aS cOWZ!@#!@# bUT yOU alSO
nEEd SOme GuNZ!@# AnaRChY jEah!@#!@# jEw CaN GeT GunZ fROm YoUR lOCaL
#WaReZ ChaNNEL oN irC.. juSt SaY 'ShiZ maN i nEEd SomE guNZ AnD iLL tRadE j00
My MoM foR eM" anD ThEy WiLL dO iT.. JuaReZ kIDDieZ d0 AnYThiNG fOR MoMz
AnD sUCH SHiZ....
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica"><img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

<small>[ April 20, 2002, 01:10 PM: Message edited by: xoo1246 ]</small>

[NoltaiR]

There is no 'it sounds kewl' to it. It IS kewl and IS crap. Anyways all it would do is give you a momentary highpowered jet of fire that would come out of the side until the pressure on the inside of the bottle leveled out to the pressure on the outside. Then the bottle would burn like anything. It worries me how a theory such as the FAE can be so complicated. All that is happening is a fuel is blown evenly into the air so that the fuel would be oxidized in the air around it. Then the fuel is ignited causing a flash within the cloud of fuel. Any closure causes huge amounts of energy to build up until the confinement can no longer hold the pressure within. The fuel is most commonly dispersed by an explosive charge or similar force.

The stronger the confinement, the more pressure will build up, and therefore a bigger blast. And as far as I am concerned, a plastic coke bottle is not a strong confinement, especially since your source of ignition involves burning a hole through the side with sparklers.

I mean, hell, if you are stupid enough to do that then why waste the time to make that sort of contraption when you can similarly just throw a spray paint can in a fire. And even then you will get a bigger bang for your buck because it is a metal cansiter.... not plastic.

[Flake2m]

I have never read any "K3wl manuals" and i never would see the point in doing so. I do question why you would show that [load of rubbish], as it may prove that you read them.

Though the idea about the pressurised coke bottle could be improved.
An HE charge could be placed inside the coke bottle. The bottle would then be filled with a substance such as grain alcohol, then it was pressurised it would become more of a weapon instead of a "k3wl b0mb"
when it was detonated, you could ignite the vapour cloud with a secondary charge.

BTW, has anyone ever thought about using a device like an FAE to disperse a large cloud of Acid? H2SO4 would work well in binary with another chemical.

[xoo1246]

Flake2m: It was intended as a joke. I have read kewl manuals, and I guess most of us have, if only to have a laugh.

[Anthony]

I may be missing something here, but what's the obsession with pressurising the fuel container? All I see it doing is adding complexity and reducing reliability (i.e a leak occuring and emptying your fuel out).

If a pressurised container made the weapon more effective, wouldn't the military use it? Even if they did, does the home imporvisor *need" to do the same?

[xoo1246]

I posted this topic in High Explosives to talk about detonating FAE:s. Now, as an attempt to break up the discussion around pressurisied coke bottles I will ask a question:
If one would use actetylene in a two-events FAE, what container for the fuel would be preferable. Could one break up the top of a common gas container with acetylen with the use of H.E. without having a detonation of the content of the bottle instantly? That way releasing the gas and then detonate it.

[Jager]

An aerosol spray of fuel from the bomb is released into the air and ignited
near to ground level, resulting in a fireball explosion that has been
described as similar in its flash to a mini-nuclear bomb explosion. FAEs were
used in the US-led war with Iraq and the war against Vietnam.

There is no arguing that the Daisy Cutter is indeed the most powerful conventional weapon in the U.S. arsenal. General Wesley Clark calls it "a terrific weapon. . . . It's got tremendous destructive power." He isn't kidding: Its 12,600 pounds of a high explosive called GSX is three times the amount of explosive used in the second most powerful bomb--the GBU-28 "bunker buster." Jane's Air Launched Weapons guide describes GSX as "a jellied slurry blast explosive" of aluminum powder, polystyrene soap, and ammonium nitrate. This would be similar to the bomb used by Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma City--just six times more powerful. A fiery explosion results, as seen in the Al Jazeera broadcast, but most of the damage is caused by a shockwave, or "overpressure," amounting to 1,000 pounds per square inch. Because the bomb explodes above ground, the damage is not confined by a crater. Instead, the blast flattens everything within a diameter of roughly 600 yards. The shockwaves can be felt miles away.

<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/flash/0,5860,588916,00.html" target="_blank">http://www.guardian.co.uk/flash/0,5860,588916,00.html</a>
<img src="http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/images/blu-118b-thermobaric.jpg" alt="" />

[kingspaz]

i thought that wasn't a daisy cutter....they are much fatter.
heres a pic from about.com
<img src="http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/graphics/osama_daisycutter.jpg" alt="" />

[Anthony]

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">"a jellied slurry blast explosive" of aluminum powder, polystyrene soap, and ammonium nitrate. This would be similar to the bomb used by Timothy McVeigh</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">First of all, it sounds like you're saying that McVeigh used a "daisy cutter"... If you're saying that he used this "GSX" stuff, then no, he didn't did he? Saying it's similar just because GSX and ANFO both have an NH4NO3 in them is like saying H2O and H2O2 are similar because they both have H2 and O2 in them, would you drink both?

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">"overpressure," amounting to 1,000 pounds per square inch</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">So? One of the ANNM charges in a plastic drinks bottle created an over pressure of hundreds, possibly thousands of times greater than that. A black powder charge can do better than 1000psi. Through a distance from the explosion into the equation and things start to mean something.

Also, "daisy cutter" is a fuze, the actual weapon is called BLU-82/B.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">The munition was not designed as a weapon as such. It was developed during the Vietnam War as a combat engineering tool in "Commando Vault" operations to clear helicopter landing zones in jungles, blowing down trees and vegetation without leaving a crater. It appears to be a bit more bark than bite, but the bark is really loud.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">I'm going to have to look for some technical info on the BLU-82/B to find out if it really is an FAE weapon and if so, what mechanism it uses, or if it's just a big bomb.

If you're going to make a big bomb, you might as well do it right - The Grandslam weighs in at 22000lb and uses an RDX filler.

[xoo1246]

Did a search "BLU-82/B thermobaric" and "BLU-82/B FAE", gave very few results, I belive it is mearly a large inexpensive bomb that they detonate a couple of meters above the ground, the aluminium increases the air blast but lowers the VoD. At least it's not an FAE, and I doubt the slurry is dispersed in the air before it's detonated.
I will do some more searching, trying to verify it.
Anthony: Agree on all your points.

Edit: Okay, it has been verified: BLU-82/B is only
a general purpose bomb, it's only the stupid press claiming it's a FAE.
<a href="http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/blu-82.htm" target="_blank">http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/blu-82.htm</a>

Also, look at this animation of a FAE going off:
<a href="http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/faeanim.gif" target="_blank">http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/faeanim.gif</a>

<small>[ April 21, 2002, 07:18 PM: Message edited by: xoo1246 ]</small>

[Jager]

That was a picture of a BLU-118/B, its a solid fuel-air explosive i.e a Thermobaric bomb. Not a daizy cutter.

There is a link above the picture that shows how a BLU-82 works

That info I posted was just copied and paisted. about McVeigh, that was just a generalization about GSX's and ANFO's similaries. and about that 1000lbs per inch, that *overpressure* is for 600yards(?)
I would like to see some ANNM do that.
I should have specified this in my previous post

<small>[ April 21, 2002, 10:03 PM: Message edited by: Jager ]</small>

[Anthony]

From the page xoo1246 linked to (http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/blu-82.htm):

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">The weapon produces an overpressure of 1000 psi [pounds per square inch] near ground zero, tapering off as distance increases.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">ground zero
n.
1. The target of a projectile, such as a missile or bomb.
2. The site directly below, directly above, or at the point of detonation of a nuclear weapon.

So we can see that "ground zero" cannot be 600 yards, so no, the overpressure of 1000psi isn't measure at 600 yards.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">lethal radius (variously reported as 300-900 feet)</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">Thats 100-300 yards, it's comforting to know that people can survive exposure to pressures many times in excess of 1000psi...

Yes, ANNM can create an over pressure of 1000psi at any distance you care to name, you just need to use enough of it.

To be honest, I'll bet money that ANNM has a higher VoD than this GSX stuff that you seem to like so much...

[Al Koholic]

(1) The threshold level of overpressure which is estimated to cause lung damage is about 68.9 kPa for a simple unreinforced, unreflected blast wave. There will be considerable variation in this value with differing conditions of exposure.

(2) The threshold value for eardrum rupture is probably around 22 kPa (0.2 atm) and that overpressure associated with a 50% probability of eardrum rupture ranges from 90 to 130 kPa (0.9 to 1.2 atm).

Sooo....if by saying
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica"> it's comforting to know that people can survive exposure to pressures many times in excess of 1000psi...
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">you mean that it is possible that a human being may live and function biologically in an stable pressurized environment...then ok. But in the context of a blast wave, no. To rupture your eardrums I need 3.19 psi. 22000 pa aint all that much. To cause lung damage to you, I need to apply a wave that generates just a hair under 10 psi overpressure. Im not saying death...but lung damage. The point at which fatal lung (or other organ (especially lung and gastrointestinal tract)) injuries occur is a little over this. So I would have to disagree that a human body, in the context of our conversation here, cannot withstand pressures many times in excess of 1000 psi. More like 10.

[Jager]

1st you said a coke bottle of ANNM, and blackpowder in your previous post, and that was what I commented on.

I stated in my previous post that the blast radius what 600yards with a presure of 1000psi. I know that ground zero is not 600yard, and that the presure wave decreases over distace, so there for it cant have a constant pressure of 1000psi <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/content/public/articles/000/000/000/514obizp.asp" target="_blank">http://www.weeklystandard.com/content/public/articles/000/000/000/514obizp.asp</a> . I think your taking these #'s too scientificly

"ANNM has a higher VoD than this GSX stuff that you seem to like so much". it probly does :)

[Anthony]

Al Koholic, the detailed response is appreciated, but unfortunately unncessary as I was being sarcastic :)

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">that *overpressure* is for 600yards</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">Now, if that isn't wrong then it's at least very misleading.

An ANNM charge will pressurise its immediate surroundings to great pressures. Admitedly a coke bottle full won't produce an over pressure of >1000psi at 600yards, but then neither will a BLU-82/B.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">I think your taking these #'s too scientificly</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">Welcome to Roguesci... We tend to take science quite seriously here.

[Al Koholic]

Ah well...just trying to provide the clarification as the sarcasm was subtle and unnoticed by me (and hence probably by some other people as well.) Dont need a bunch of people running around thinking they are immune to pressure waves hehe. :)

[vulture]

The pressurized coke bottle or any other container is a bad idea because the fuel will blow away the oxygen it needs for combustion.
The sparkler will never ignite the gas because it's in a high pressure stream of fuel with almost no oxygen in it.

It is important to make a distinction between a physical explosion and a chemical explosion. A physical explosion is a violent rupture of a container caused by overpressure, which also causes the bang.
A balloon left out in the sun or a firecracker are examples of this.
A chemical explosion does not need confinement, neither does a FAE requires confinement to detonate.

An easy to make FAE can be produced by the electrolysis of water and because you're doing the reverse reaction the oxygen balance is perfect if you collect the gas properly.

[xoo1246]

Or you could buy two gas tubes, one containing oxygen, the other containing hydrogen. But then you wouldn't have a FAE explosive, since the A in FAE is for Air. The thing with FAE:s is that you don't have to carry the oxygen, you use the atomspheric oxygen.
As for thermobaric weapons, maybe sensitised nitromethane could be used, if you separate the burster charge from the nitromethane, so that the nitromethan doesn't detonate by the chock.

Maybe breaking up a acetylene tube with explosives isn't a good idea, since it can spontaneously decompose if the pressure exceeds 103 kPa.
:p

[Al Koholic]

The only way I see a pressurized bottle of fuel being an effective dispersal method is if you have a bottle with a piston under which lies HUGE pressure and on top is a fuel. The top would also have to have a kind of barrel on it to accelerate the fuel when a valve on the top is opened. The valve could be any size but I think a really large valve would be best due to a larger valves ability to dump fuel more rapidly. THe fuel would form a clod on contact with the atmospehere and then could be detonated with an appropriate charge. Ive been doing something along these lines for a while now with one of my potato cannons. It will accelerate potatos to about 343 meters a second. By placing 100ml of liquid down the barrel and firing it, you obtain a very nice cloud which is well mixed with air. I usually use gasoline. Around 100 - 150 ml. This I fire directly into a burning, xylene soaked paper towel. The explosion is usually quite loud, very bright, and makes a NICE pressure pulse. Fireballs can be about 10 feet in diameter. Now all I need to do is figure out how to do this remotely and detonate it with some HE!!!

[firebreether]

103 KPa? for real, thats like nothing at all!, you must not be able to store much acetylene in a cyclinder at that pressure! Anyways, i think using a liquid fuel with some explosive to disperse it would be most efficent, and easy to set up, i likethe idea with the potato cannon though

[Flake2m]

Ok. I have refined my idea of a effective FAE.

A 40 gallon drum has an HE charge placed on the bottom of the drum (but also so the flammable substance surrounds it). The drum is then filled with a highly volatile and flammable substance (such as petrol or gasoline). The drum is then sealed shut (don't try using a oxy torch believe me) and a second charge of HE is placed on the top of the drum.
The 1st HE charge and 2nd HE charge are connected by means of a timer, So the second He charge detonates 1-2 seconds after the first.

This device theoritically should work in a way so
1. The first HE charge disperses the petrol/gasoline, it won't combust the fuel because their is no oxygen.
2. The second HE charge ignites the air around it and adds a shockwave.

You could of course scale down my idea, As this FAE could flatten a house. :D
I am not sure how big the HE charges would be but my estimates are:
First HE charge; 350g RDX
Second HE charge; 50g RDX

[Azazel]

This Daisy Cutter missile thing just sounds like a big fuckin flash bang. I would imagine one would go blind looking at the explosion from a distance. The heat created in the explosion would also be tremendous. I would say this missile is designed to created massive amounts of heat sucking up all of the oxygen in a massive radius, burning the lungs of ground troops and totally incinerating anything in the vacinity. Ammonium Nitrate can suck my yarak... :mad:

[EP]

They aren't missiles. Look them up on FAS for a good description.

[Al Koholic]

Flake2m...yeah that sounds better for an FAE. I however, would worry that in the initial detonation, the pressure would throw your secondary charge (sitting on top of the drum) high into the air and it might detonate above the cloud. This would of course, all depend on the design of the barrel and such. I can see the advantages from having a detonation occur in the center of the cloud but in my opinion, I dont think it is possible to have it in the center. I think you should place the charge on the ground maybe 2 to 3 or 4 meters away from the fuel charge (depending on amt of fuel). This I think is less ideal (less powerful) that detonating a charge at the center of the cloud as it will be on the edge and the shockwave will have to go farther to get all the fuel. But it will, I believe, add greater reliability to your device as it wont move when the first shockwave goes off.
al

[kingspaz]

also if the first charge is big enough to vaporise the fuel and scatter it everywehre wouldn't it simply blast the second charge to pieces if not setting it off?

[xoo1246]

First, gasoline isn't very suitable since it has a very low percentage span (fuel in air %)where it detonates. Second, you would have to do testing and/or calculating.
Simply putting a charge in a barrel isn't going to do it.
Neither is a FAE a damn "fuckin" flashbang.
And since when is putting a charge in a barrel your intellectual property. Sorry, I'm only bored with "fuckin flashbangs", things that flatten houses and that the word "refined" is used to describe the development from pressurised coke bottles with attached sparklers to detonating H.E. inside gasoline barrels.

[vulture]

He said the daisy cutter was a big flashbang because it mainly contains aluminium powder and ammoniumnitrate.
Besides, a daisy cutter ain't no FAE at all!

<small>[ May 10, 2002, 11:47 AM: Message edited by: vulture ]</small>

[Flake2m]

Xoo, you to are flaming me :mad:

From my perspective, a barrel would be suitable container for an FAE, as it is symetrical and cylindrical, this would allow the fuel to be dispersed evenly. Also remember that the HE's shockwave would be even more powerful if it surrounded by a liquid, this would help disperse the liquid.

I am unsure of the substance that you would use. I used gasoline as an example. There are hundreds of potential chemicals that could be used, you could even have a mixture of chemicals in an FAE.

As for timing I know that the main problem with true FAE's is the timing between the first HE charge and the Second HE charge, however this varies; depending on the fuel used, the size of the FAE and the location/weather at the time. So you are right there, testing should be done to see what the best delay in between charges is.

The soda bottle/sparklers idea was not an idea I thought up, nor that I would try. After a little research, I detirmined that an more effective FAE was one that used 2 charges, the first charge dispering the fuel the second charge igniting the fuel.

[xoo1246]

A couple of years ago, maybe I would have thought of that (pressurised bottle) as a good idea too. It all depends on what you have read, what you have done, etc. We are all here to learn, sorry if I offended you.
I guess you would have to shield the second charge not to have it explode(deflagrate) from the hot gases/high pressure from the first charge. Maybe the fuel itself is enough shielding.
I belive you have to have some really sofisticated equipment to develop one of those.

[Wicked]

Hmm, I was thinking, you know those pestiside sprayers? the like, 3-4 gallon ones? well, maybe there would be a way to use one of those with its presure to shoot out gasoline in a mist, then have an ignition switch or something thats a remote or whatever, I dunno, just an idea.

[CyclonitePyro]

I've played with those pressurized sprayer bottles, they are fun to play with, just like a premade flamethrower, just make sure the end is metal not plastic, they sell metal replacements. The mist is definitly not fine enough for an FAE, it looks great though holding it high and misting gasoline down to a fire on the ground. The mist falls until it hits the gas and then FWOOSH! A fireball.
You also can set it to a stream that goes pretty far, 15' maybe.

[Wicked]

Yeah, it is a cool fireball, but it was just an idea. :) thats an awesum toy to play with. I scared the shit outa my friends with one before.

[Lazy01001]

Yes, "playing" with the pressurized bottles is indeed fun, try not to hold whatever you are using to ignite the mist/stream directly under it,or right next to the spout, like you should know it will put the flame out, and the flame coul dpossible go back into the container.

[Wicked]

no it couldnt, not with the presure bottles. i know because ive experimented. its also best to just light a tube, er, metal pipe. that has styrofome + gasoline and tape it to it, that always works.

[Lazy01001]

Couldn't you have just said napalm??? and explain what you mean by Light a tube,er, pipe"

[Wicked]

block off one end of the pipe and have it full of the styrofome/gasoline mix and block that end off, and drill a 4-5mm hole in the top(you can use the end, but i prefur the top), and duct-tape it on.

[Lazy01001]

Um... when you did that.. the flame that would result would be weak... wait a second.. no, the gas and styrafoam (napalm) inside would be starving of air, and it would be getting it from the small hole, wich would make the fire more violent. Sorry I get what you meant. perhaps a flare would be better. Mike... stupid.

[Wicked]

dude i just told you that on aim

[Lazy01001]

you told me it as i was typing it, ass.

[Cyclonite]

This might be a bit of usefull information.
Military FAE bombs work like this. Theres a drum similar to a 55 Gal drum that has a burster charge in the middle of it. As the FAE desends it shoots out a 6 ft probe when the probe hits the ground the burter charge is initiated. Im not sure of how the timing works but 2 blasting caps are shot out when the burster gos at a slower velocity than the fuel vapor reaching the outside of the vapor cloud and initiating forming a massive fireball with a nice amount of pressure.:)

[DBSP]

Why the hell do you have to keep telling us what we already know, you get figure out how an FAE works by reading this thread from beginning to end.

[darkdontay]

I belive that when Dumb people qoute educated people.. they sem to feel smarter them sleves.. liek some how just because the can hash back a Ctrl_C&Ctrl_V they are now professors on the subjects at hand..

Personaly I have had not to much good results trying to make anice size FAE.. Tming seems to be something critical that I think I'm missing.. I just quit that whole path a couple years ago..

Though it might prove fun to get back into it and see what I can dream up and create.

[grammarless]

Wow the local news just showed a segment where they blew up a farm house with natural gas.
http://www.kstp.com/article/view/96562/

[DBSP]

Thats interesting, shows what powers FAEs posess, even though this wasn't an actual detonating FAE it lifted the roof of the house and flattened it without any difficulties.

A similar effect would prbably have been caused by evapourerated gasoline ignited in the confined space of a house. There has been talk about people using spray evepourated gasoline to tear down old barns and other buildings that is to be taken down as cheap and simple as possible. I belive they have flash charges put at strategic locations in the building that ignates the gasoline vapours which in turn explode the building. I think the best way to fill the house with gas would be to spray warm gasoline from a pressurised container that has a thin nozzle that effectively disperses the fuel into the sorrounding air causing it to vapourise much faster that if only poured ot in the open.

[grammarless]

I have a question. If a building was filled with natural gas or whatever in the right ratio (like in the farmhouse in my previous post) and instead of igniting the gas a HE charge was detonated. The explosion would be far more powerful, right? And how large of a charge would be necessary?

[kingspaz]

the size of charge would depend if the FAE detonation was capable of sustaining itself, which i think it should be able to, so a small 100g charge should do it fine.

[fayll]

someone can tell me where i can find the FAE.pdf file please ?

[fayll]

I found this : http://www.gichd.ch/pdf/TN_09_30__04__2001_FAE%20_Version%201.pdf



---------------------

[rjche]

Fuel air explosives are simple to make and use. Military ones use exotic solvents dispersed in air which can reach detonation pressures easily when unconfined. For the most part these solvents are expensive and not available to experimenters.

Propane is widely available. It needs a 1 part propane to 15 parts air (by weight) for a very powerful mixture. It tolerates a fairly wide mixture range around that ratio for "mistakes" etc.

One interested in experimenting with such can look up the flammability ratios for propane (similar to gasoline), heat of vaporization (controls how cool it will make the air as it is dispersed from liquid form) and liquid pressures (controls ease of dispersal), and explosion pressure for the gas air mixture at atmospheric pressure.

Briefly on structures or in caves, mines, barrels, etc. the propane is dispersed in liquid spray via a hose into the area the FAE area. Propane tanks are inverted to expel liquid instead of gas. Hoses are used to put it where its needed. Quarter inch plastic tubing will carry it fine, but it must withstand 150 psi not to bust. A small hole in the structure will allow the tubing to be inserted into the structure.

The volume of the area is estimated as accurately as practical. Only a single room is usually FAE in this spec forces type harassment.

For each 100 cu ft of air you need half pound of propane. It will blast with the equivalent force of about a pound or two of high explosive. The blast will be much slower, as will the peak pressure.

However it will far exceed the structural strength of buildings and things like water tanks and barrels etc. It will subject things in its vicinity to pressures of about 30 psi, applied in milliseconds, followed by a suction of about half atmosphere or so, (or reduced air pressure from 15psi to about 5 to 7 depending on how large the FAE volume was).

Any open vent areas decrease the blasting effect by venting the pressure. In a 30 gallon water tank, able to withstand 150 psi, filled with propane FAE will vent through a single 1.5 inch diameter hole without damaging the tank. There will be no detonation, but a very fast deflagration, with pressure rising to around 30 psi and making a noise very much like a jet taking off. It is LOUD, so do not do this next to neighbors. The flame exiting will be barely visible blue, and will reach out about 3 ft. Needless to say contact with it will leave grievous skin injury. The jet will last about 2 seconds. It will bring neighbors out "to see". Many will believe a jet just buzzed their home.

Generally for each 100 cu ft air volume, you need to disperse half pound of propane. Thus a 20 lb tank can FAE 4000 cu ft space. IF confined this would do similar damage to buildings as a case of dynamite.

All this is explained in mining manuals which contain info about gas explosions. The tank stuff above is used to demonstrate to lay miners that FAE are not something to disrespect. They also use a 55 gallon empty drum, and put some gasoline in it and let it evaporate for several minutes and mix well, then fire it with a spark-plug.

The barrel bottom rips off but still stays attached to the barrel like a can of beans opened without cutting the can all way round. The barrel blasts upward about 50 feet, and falls with a satisfying clang, and impresses all students that even small FAE are quite destructive.

A cu ft contains about 8 gallons volume of air, which weighs 0.08 lb.
and requires .005 lbs propane or gasoline to convert to FAE.

A ten foot by ten foot by ten foot shed would thus contain 1000 cu ft volume of air weighing 80 lbs, and would need 5 lbs propane. (rounding everything off here for great accuracy does not lead to greater bang.

This would exert a pressure on the walls of around 30 psi, or about 3000 pounds on each of the structure's 6 walls. Due to the light weight of such a wall, estimated at 200 lbs, with a force on it of 3000 pounds, it would initially accelerate at 3000 force over 200 weight or 15 G's, or about 15x32 or about 500 ft per sec per sec. That acceleration would last about tenth second, (rough guess) so it would achieve a velocity of around 50 ft per second, or about 30 mph. Walls would travel about 50 ft, and top would rise about 30 ft.

Generally when a home has a gas leak which explodes, the actual FAE is usually a single room volume yet it usually reduces all of the house to rubble and puts concrete blocks or planks about 100 ft around.

Houses and commercial buildings can withstand only about 2psi air pressure, and house trailers about half that before they disintegrate.

Bomb shelters were built for 5 psi overpressure. Those will not withstand a FAE inside them. Some will withstand it outside them for they are stronger on imploding than on exploding, but not all that much in usual size buildings.

Military FAE propaganda claims it destroys people but not buildings. It also claims depleted Uranium won't harm people it dumped tons on. Let them find a trace of it in their own home though and they go ballistic without guidance.

To REDUCE building damage they must use very large volumes and high above the buildings so they depend on the suction that follows the initial pressure and acceleration of air away from the FAE.

Like water, when the push stops its inertia causes it to keep going causing a vacuum (more or less) until the suction stops the speeding air and it springs back to its original location. It arrives back with hurricane velocity and is usually quite hot when it gets there.

It was around 2000F when it left, and only cooled some due to turbulence with cool air it was pushing away. The vacuum can cause lung rupture for it's fast and lasts a second or two. Gas in ruminant critters gut often cause abdominal ruptures from this suction. Such injuries are rapidly fatal.

This is a weapon all terrorists have been well schooled in using, so nothing new is posted here, except new to idiots in high places who think they can bomb and pillage people without air power, and not have retaliation.

This is only one of dozens of simple, easily obtainable, and very destructive ways a disgruntled person can hit back at a society that increasingly likes to screw citizens to set examples to others to toe the line. This screwing is usually done using the now wholly corrupt justice system with its Darth-Vader mentality prosecutors, and never-tell-the-truth enforcement agents, and not to leave out the idiots which become public defenders, and will advise innocent clients to make a plea bargain. Hell if they can scare a citizen enough to cause him to confess in open court under oath that he committed a crime that never occurred, they look like heroes to the public. No one knows the difference but government crooks, and the victim.

Lately USA officials have been screwing some innocent people having knowledge of how to bring their castle down, but officials seem oblivious of their own vulnerabilities. They are having to learn each the hard way. They have so far performed miserably at each new terrorist activity against them.

They cry a lot when disaster befalls them, claiming no one could have foreseen that. Being corrupt idiots they generally do not for-see anything, and tend to do things on gut feel basis, but then who else today wants to have a government job?

With the info above experimenters can avoid making serious mistakes.

I recall an engineer in a southern state who built a bomb shelter during the cuban close-call of a nuclear war. (A soviet sub commander was being harassed hard by an idiot running a US destroyer. The sub had nuke torpedoes. The commander said he came very close to using it and wiping out that destroyer and putting several others in serious jeopardy from a tidal wave, and of course destroying himself. He had enough personal conscience not to do it and start a nuke war, but had another commander like those USA have been there we would already have personal experience with nukes incoming)

That shelter sat on his farm unused for decades until one day he decided to see if it could stand a FAE which he had read about.

He pumped propane in it and fired it with a spark plug hooked to a oil burner transformer.

NOTHING HAPPENED.

He asked around and learned he had put in a tenth the right amount of propane, and it was too weak to even ignite.

He also learned if it had exploded that his 100 ft wire would have been inadequate distance in spite of the 6x6x6 concrete structure being overburdened with 3 ft of dirt on top and dome shaped, It would have disintegrated and sprayed the vicinity with concrete blocks solid with poured concrete, traveling at lethal velocity.

He would not have been around for further experiments most likely.

Being a sensible fellow he promptly abandoned experiments with FAE, and went back to beer parties and chasing other folks' wives. He was thankful it had been a dud. I believe he ended up in top management at a large aircraft company.

So if you experiment and live, there is great hope for you in this screwed up world. The way to do that is ask around, study, test in small quantities first, and expect tenfold what you think may happen for the first try. Ten times less than planned for is just a bummer, but ten times more can be end of game...depends on how hard your head is.

[rooster]

reading through this whole thread, I have not read anything about shaped charges used with FAEs. What about placing a shaped charge that goes upward through a barrel of a flammable liquid? If the metal wouldn't ignite the FAE, it would at least be spread around more than just a random charge on the bottom, will it not?

This device will maybe be better for liquids who need higher amount of air in the mist. Hopefully the liquid will be sprayed further away, and it will mix with more air on its way.

What do you think?

[Mr Cool]

It would not be as effective at dispersing the fuel as a central, ordinary charge. The jet of the SC will just pass straight through the fuel, without disturbing it very much, compared to the blast of a HE in the middle. The jet would just push the fuel out of the way, just slightly to the side, and then it would leak out the holes, whereas a central blast would push it out in all directions since with a central charge the only way for the fuel to move out of the way of the blast is for it to be blasted outwards. I'm having trouble explaining it...

Edit: an EFP, on the other hand, might work due to it's larger size (just as a larger calibre bullet makes a bigger splash in water). The EFP would carry on out of the other side of the fuel tank, impact with, and weaken and penetrate, the target, which would then be finished off with the FAE's overpressure, perhaps...

[kinetic]

I've seen the device mentioned earlier (super-heated fuel) somewhere before. In their design they used a pressure cooker for the container and gave a thermite to fuel ratio calculation. For the thermite charge they used an up-right pipe with a small black powder charge on the bottom. The rest of the pipe was filled with thermite and intiated from the top. That way, when the thermite burned down to the BP... you know the rest. It sounded pretty "KewL" to me but they had a good idea but still not sure if it would work....

EDIT: I didn't know this post was three pages so I had to put it back into context :rolleyes:

[Desmikes]

I tried an empty 4L plastic jug filled with a small amount of butane ignited by simply running a sealed fuse through the lid. Yes, it did make a loud bang, but the interesting thing is that when I inspected the container afterwards it didn't look like a simple pressure rupture i.e. a single split(common to al+acid bombs), it looked as if you detonated small amount of HE inside: the plastic was torn into multiple strings. Does that mean that reacton did reach detonation point?
I am now thinking about detonating one of my PLASTIC 50g butane tanks (used for refilling lighters) with a small amount of AP, in the middle of a large (roughly 0.8 cu m) cardboard box and then have another charge set off the whole mixture some fraction of a second later. I think it should work, the only thing that worries me is that I hear that AP uses up some oxygen from air, should I use flash or a small ANNM charge instead or just stick with AP?

[grammarless]

I had this same idea. My idea was to insert a detonator into a 2L pop bottle with the right fuel air mixture. Personally I would try putting an AP detonator in the 4L jug empty, then compare that to a jug with butane. I did read over here (http://yarchive.net/explosives/detonating_vapor.html) on yarchives.net that small amounts of fuel air mixtures can detonate when simply ignited. I will have to experiment once I get back from vacation. Do you think I could get a fuel air mixture in a 2L pop bottle to detonate from an AP detonator? And if so how large should the detonator be?

[Microtek]

I have been thinking about an experiment for a while. I think it may work, but the scale would be more than I care to try, so I'll not be conducting it. Anyway, here goes:

Acetylene is one of the most energetic fuels out there and also has a great potential for detonating in mixtures with air. This is set off by it being a gas which can't even be used compressed because spontaneous explosive polymerization might occur.
So, the idea is to use a block of calcium carbide along with a charge of RDX or similar highly brisant explosive and a canister of water. The explosive detonates, shattering the carbide into powder ( if this won't work you'll have to pulverise the carbide manually, prior to use in the FAE, but then it would be much more vulnerable to moisture. ) and disperses the CaC2 into the air along with the water. The carbide reacts rapidly with the water aerosol due to the state of division, and after a few seconds, the cloud is ignited by some external means ( lots of ways to do this depending on application. )

According to the propellants database, the combustion of one mol of acetylene will release 1254 kJ, so under the assumption that one mol of water is included in the charge ( so CaC2 + H2O --> CaO + C2H2 ) the charge will output useable energy ( disregarding that released from the reaction of carbide with water ) corresponding to more than 15000 J/g ( TNT gives about 2700 J/g ). If two mol water must be included, useable energy drops to 12500 J/g due to the greater device weight.

[FUTI]

It seems that I posted similar question in vain...you already disscused this matter very thoroughly. As for the chemically initiated ignition can some post some patent or reliable info please? The thing about vapor concentration needed for ignition is true...happen to me once with a 4l flask that I thought that is dry from the cleaning with toluene (degreasing and organic compound removal) the day before and I had to heat the ground glass joint that has badly sealed itself (noting else worked). The short (for me very long) moment of holding the flaming ball of deflagrating vapors can not be described! Luckily the other thing mentioned about it looses pressure easy through a vent is also true as I wouldn't be writeing this. Microtek I liked you simple idea about carbide bomb...if you look upon it maybe a CaO generated in this proces can be used as heat generator (CaO + H2O = Ca(OH)2 + heat) that fires up the mixture?

[me234]

Grammarless, are you trying to get the fuel/air to detonate as opposed to deflagrate? Sort of along the lines of with a weak det. NG will detonate slowly, but with a stronger initiator, it'll be detonate more powerfully. If so, then I think that's a good idea. It'll be interesting to know how power output of an FAE varies with strength of initiation.

[kingspaz]

me234, if you look back to the begining of the thread you'll see the original objective, the point being that grammarless is not trying anything new.

Would hydrogen not be a good fuel apart from it being an awkward gas? Its highly flamable through a wide percentage of concentrations (don't hold me to that but I think I read that on a spudgun website...).

I think its also important that the dispersive charge doesn't go overkill though so as to dilute the fuel/air mix too much.

[Bugger]

(cut)I think its also important that the dispersive charge doesn't go overkill though so as to dilute the fuel/air mix too much.

Ideally, you should obtain a stoichiometric mixture, for complete combustion without any excess fuel or air, of a gaseous fuel-air mixture, for maximum explosive effect. The ratio can be calculated, and the ratio of volumes to be mixed in the gas phase follow from the fact that a mole of any ideal gas at the same temperature and pressure occupies the same volume. (Not too close to the boiling-point, though, where the ideal-gas law breaks down; otherwise you can refine the volume ratio calculation using such methods as the Van-Der-Waals' equation or empirical coompressibilities).

Bugger.

[FUTI]

Microtek what do you think about constructing a two stage bomb...that use same basis but have different effect. You use water and CaC2 reaction for acetylene production in closed small compartment in the center of the bomb. When the pressure come to the certain point it triggers explosive polymerisation that blast the compartment and spread the pulverised CaC2 that is surounding that compartment mixing it with water at the same time. Reaction continues and you now have a very good explosive mixure with air (acetylene have as I remember very wide area of percentage concentration suitable for explosion) that only need to be fired up...time delayed pyro is good enough if mine previous idea is not good.
EDIT: The most simple improvised device I know is the bomb the terorist from Algiere used in France. Small butan bomb, trigger is sugar/sodium chlorate mixture fired with sulphuric acid. :cool:

[nbk2000]

I was reading Federoff and found an interesting idea.

A flamethrower tank was modified to spray a stream of ethylene oxide fuel onto a target, and explosive charges were fired into the vaporizing fuel to detonate.

A two story wood building was completed vaporized to splinters using 100 pounds of fuel, which was deemed massive overkill.

Now, what about a man-portable version? Spray in a bit of EtO into a target room and fire into an igniter round to crush everyone inside. :)

[FUTI]

That is a good info NBK2000! As you can see (from my psts above) I'm more into simple improvisation of the FAE but the info you give about flamethrower is maybe very usefull. I guess that we can use fireextinguisher to spray a stream of fuel. You give an info about tested and used fuel for military FAE bombs...do you think it will work for some other fuels? In theory we could use petroleum...but there are not a single confirmed use of it that I'm aware of.

[nbk2000]

EtO is also an abbreviation for ether, and ether has a very wide range of ignitability, as well as being easily available, so I see no reason why not.

If you already know the target dimensions, then you could pre-load an extinguisher cylinder with that amount and have it perfect. :)

BTW, does anyone have a copy of the site that was posted a while ago about the kid that made a flamethrower from PVC pipe? That was lost in the crash. :( But that'd be just the thing for something like this.

The only problem is that, because of the short range of a sprayer, and the massive concussive force of an FAE explosion, the operator is likely to be subjected to overpressure unless the geography of the target area allows for an escape.

The Federoff cited test was done using an armored vehicle, not man-portable equipment.

[kingspaz]

What about car portable? ;)

If a car was modified suitably an improvised tank could be built...No match for a real tank but alot stronger than an ordinary car.

[Dave Angel]

BTW, does anyone have a copy of the site that was posted a while ago about the kid that made a flamethrower from PVC pipe? That was lost in the crash. :( But that'd be just the thing for something like this.

Here's their thread on the Awful Forums:

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=1107178&perpage=40&pagenumber=1

[Dodoman]

How about FAE mortar shells......? A morter shell would have a salute to disperse the fuel, the fuel (flour) and a method to ignite the fuel cloud (mini mortar.
The mini mortar i think would be much beter than using a secondry charge to detonate the fuel cloud for three reasons. Firstly a secondery high explosive charge may or may not survive the first two blasts (the lift charge and the salute despersing the fuel). Secondely the charge may be far away from the cloud when the detonation occurs and may not ignite it. Thirdly if a secondery HE is to be used that would definetly requier a primari and the primar would definetly not survive the first two concusions.
I think if it did work (most unlikly) it would defintly do no damage but it could be adjusted to explode near the ground (requiers alot of expiramenting) or it could be fired on a building (target).
I drew a sketch of how i think the shell would look like and uploaded it to the FTP you'll find it under the name "FAE shell.jpg".
I have no time right now to test this theory of mine but if anyone likes the idea please feel free to test it and keep me posted.

[kingspaz]

Dodoman, I suggest you read the announcement at the top of every section as there really is no need to post the same thing 10 times :rolleyes:

[FUTI]

to NBK2000: there is small difference that separate the ethylene-oxide and ether and it is not only boiling point, since propylene oxide can be used also (and that one have same bp as ether) but it's explosive caracteristics are important to as well as vapour pressure (believe me I'm just looking at one pressurised bottle of propylene-oxide with f*cking valves on it). Construction that is used on tank maybe cannot be used for this purpose. But back on the my favorite subject... improvisation. I hope you don't flame me for persisting on it? If you modify the fireextinguisher and arm it with watch mechanism, vent blasting mixture and secondary fuse you could set it inside the any object in the country (what is suspicious in fireextinguisher?) or if you wish an clear ground explosion... well the ballon and parachute thread seem very interesting;)

[ProdigyChild]

I had a sports accident last week and thanks to the resulting concussion I've got lots of new ideas recently :D
This one is about getting the timing right in an FAE: Even if I knew the proper delay time of igniting the sprayed fuel it would be difficult to do without electronic equipment.
But wait! Isn't it much easier to ignite when the sprayed fuel ball has expanded to a certain diameter which can be calculated/estimated from the amount of fuel and the fuel percentage in the air? I believe. So why not simply place a flame at the calculated distance from the spray charge. As soon as the explosive aerosol reaches the flame - KABOOOMMM!!!
I tried today but my (elevated) charge construction was a botch hence a complete failure :mad:

[akinrog]

In the Anarchist Arsenal Books, there is a device called mothball bomb which is actually an implosion type FAE device. According to the claims contained in the relevant chapter, this device does not require a (secondary) firing mechanism since it contains a glass or plastic tube at the center (of the container) containing an aluminum mixture (aluminum powder plus copper oxide IIRC and it claims even thermite shall work) which when hit by the shochwave produces sparks which travel together with the sprayed fuel and when the sprayed fuel expands and reaches optimum combustible fuel /air mix, it ignites the fuel.

The concept seems very simple. You just place a glass /plastic tube (which contains above mentioned igniter mix) at the center of a cylindrical container which contains a fuel. The flat ends of the cylindrical container is reinforced to prevent axial spilling /spreading of the fuel. The external circumference of the cylinder is covered with a sheet explosive (type of which is not defined by the author, maybe you shall laugh at me but I never understand strength of a thin layer of HE :confused: ) which is detonated by multiple caps (to create an implosion effect) which are placed on the circumference of the cylinder.
The author says 37 Gallon of fuel (hexane IIRC) creates a fireball of 100 feet diameter (radius?). Another interesting claim is that the device can use several different materials as fuel (including mothballs (i.e. naphtalene), some plastics (which I don't remember types and names) and even ammonia (however he did not specify if it is anhydrous or a solution))
This type of device, I believe, promises more improvisability (sp?) than any other type of FAE.

[WMD]

The Mothball Bomb always interested me, it just bothers me, that you need so many caps (I'm still not too comfortable with primaries lying around).
Another approach that looks very promising to me would be hypergolic ignition. Mix a pyrophoric compound with your fuel, this way it's evenly distributed throughout the cloud.

At the moment I'm looking for an easy synthesis of zinc alkyl compunds, these seem to be decent compounds for the job. Brauers Handbook lists a synthesis for Zn(Et)2 (p.1034, german edition) but you'll need ethyl iodide. So far I've only found synths for MeI and EtBr but I haven't really searched yet.

Li alkyl compunds might be interesting too, but Li has that nasty drug synthesis label attached to it.

[ProdigyChild]

Igniting sparks travelling expaning with the fuel does not work for FAEs. You start the fuel burning much too soon hence creating a nice, expanding fireball. That hasn't much to do with FAE :confused:

[Anthony]

Also, you should simply be able to embed lighter flints into the dispersing charge to ensure ignition of the fuel.

A warning: Mention not the anarchists crapbook! It's contents are not welcome here. On the rare occassion that it does contain somewhat useful information, you can be sure that it has been ripped off from elsewhere. In which case, find the original (and much more reliable and complete) source and use that.

[akinrog]

A warning: Mention not the anarchists crapbook! It's contents are not ......
Sir,
There is really a serious misunderstanding here. The book I refer to is not the Anarchist Cookbook or something like that. But "The Anarchist Arsenal by David Harber - Jelly.pdf" and "The Advanced Anarchist Arsenal by David Harber - Jelly.pdf" which I believe David Harber is not a bad author. And the books are (I believe) not crap books. Sorry for this misunderstanding.

BTW the above version of the ignition is my interpreting. The section is so short. Maybe there is a different mechanism involved there.

At the moment I'm looking for an easy synthesis of zinc alkyl compunds, these seem to be decent compounds for the job. Brauers Handbook lists a synthesis for Zn(Et)2 (p.1034, german edition) but you'll need ethyl iodide. So far I've only found synths for MeI and EtBr but I haven't really searched yet.

I liked the idea of the zinc alkyl compounds. However one drawback with this approach is spontaneous ignition of these compounds. I mean one should have find a method to fill the container with the fuel spiked with Zn(Et)2 compound without spontaneous ignition.

Igniting sparks travelling expaning with the fuel does not work for FAEs. You start the fuel burning much too soon hence creating a nice, expanding fireball. That hasn't much to do with FAE

In addition, as I said above the ignition mechanism is my interpretation. There might be another mechanism involved there (like igniter mix flys by the fuel cloud and at the right moment (right air to fuel ratio???) it ignites. Anyway I don't know about the genuinity of the device. However the text says the explosion is so powerful that it upset a car and set it on fire. :eek:

Moreover, I am living in a quarter shithole country, there are some fools who are working in gas station. I saw one of them (the gas station worker) throws his burning cigarette into gasoline barrel (with some gasoline in it) and nothing happens. This fool also said that he also throws burning matchs inside it (but I don't believe him). I mean if my interpretation of ignition mechanism is true, I believe the ignition shall only take place at the right air to fuel ratio (at least at the upper limit of the combustible mix ratio).

In addition do not forget the cloud is explosively spread which implies the fuel cloud (containing igniter in it) expands very rapidly (everything occurs within a fraction of a second). I mean the explosively spread cloud does not move (expand) like an ordinary cloud but at high speeds.

[Anthony]

My apologies, I saw the word "anarachist" and remembered the so-called FAE devices contained in the actual anarchist's cookbook. The warning is still true, just not applicable on this occasion.

There is a small amount of information on igniting gasoline with cigarettes at this webpage:

http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae1.cfm

[FUTI]

diethyl-zinc is used in decoys that tanks use when under fire to fool the IR guided rockets. But it start burning instantly when exposed to air. As I figured out... I never research subject thoroughly... it seems that you need a reaction that starts exactly at certain concentration range which is the one those compounds achieve when your explosive mixture has made best explosive mixture with air. The way I see it the time-delayed secondary fuse explosion of vapour cloud is the best improvisation.

EDIT : As I read second generation of FAE used time-delayed secondary ignition charge soo I guess it work:)
Can anyone give me an answer if we use ZnCl2 and BuLi and mix it on dispersing the fuel the two of them reacting together should give dialkyl-zinc to produce ignition...not good as hypergolic but... please comment on this:)

[WMD]

From my experience with butyl lithium and what I was told I'm under the impression that it needs to be at a certain concentration before it catches fire so it'll probably not catch fire during the first nanoseconds or something like that and you might be able to tune the ignition time by changing the fuel/igniter ratio.
But I just noticed an error in my previous posting, I mixed up hypergolic and pyrophoric ignition. I'm talking about pyrophoric ignition at the moment (because the igniter reacts with air), hypergolic would be something that reacts with the fuel, like Mn2O7.

The reason why I'm not too fond of using a second explosive charge is that you'll need a very short delay imho. In the Anarchists Arsenal Harber advises to use a normal cap for the dispersing charge and a 0.25 second delay cap for the ignition charge and I think it would be a tad bit difficult to improvise the delay cap.

[akinrog]

Maybe instead of using pyrophoric compounds (such as zinc alkylate), it might be useful to use pyroprohic substances like pyrophoric iron or sodium polysulfide (fulminating powder???).

Several years ago, I read an encyclopedia item called Magnus' pyrophoric iron (I was a weirdo reading encyclopedia then). As far as I remember, when the iron oxide is reduced with hydrogene at moderate temperatures (the text says cherry red I believe but it was a long time), the iron powder obtained is a very fine and so pyrophoric when spread in the air it spontanously catches fire. Maybe one may use such a substance.

Similarly there was another pyrophoric substance (a kind of polysulfide I believe) which is prepared by heating the potassium sulfate with charcoal (this is very similar to fulminating powder (yellow powder) I believe).

The text says these pyrophores had been used by magicians to create flash effect. Whenever necessary, the magician casts the powder and it spontaneously ignites (creating the flash effect).

Btw during my search on the net regarding pyrophoric substances I came upon the iron sulfide (FeS) (http://www.cheresources.com/ironfires.shtml) which the site claims that the iron sulfide accumulates in oil refineries and create no trouble during operation. However when the technicians shut down the facilities and open a container (vessel/column) which is covered with iron sulfide scales (thereby exposing the iron sulfide to air) there occurs explosive fires. Anyway read yourself over there. (There is also PDF (http://www.cheresources.com/ironfires.shtml) of this.)

Maybe these type of pyrophores may be more useful than any pyrophoric zinc (or other metal) alkylates.

[WMD]

No these are less useful, because they won't be uniformly dispersed in the cloud. The great thing about many of these organometallic compounds is that they're soluable in the fuel. Therefore they are present everywhere at the same concentration in the cloud and if everything goes as planned the cloud will be ignited nearly everywhere at once.

[Chris The Great]

Regarding lighting gasoline with cigarrettes, I remembered this site I had seen about it: http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/mpmain.html#cigarettes

I seems that perhaps an actual flame is needed to ignite gasoline? I noticed a similar effect while younger and playing with stuff in pressurized cans that said flammable on them. WD-40 would not ignite on glowing embers, but readily ignited and burned fiercly with a BBQ lighter flame. Brake cleaner, on the other hand, ignited easily on embers as well as the lighter.

Perhaps this should be taken into accound for constructing a FAE as well?

[FUTI]

It just come to my mind...aren't alkyl-borane just the right choice? They are oxygen sensitive and reported to make explosion in such conditions.

Mix up little BF3*Et2O and some NaBH4 in your unrafinated petroleum and make your mixture. Just a thought...it need lots of tuning to make it work.

[ProdigyChild]

I observe, the most recent posts are all about igniting the fuel on the very first contact with oxygen. The result is a nice fireball probable but NOT A VIOLENT EXPLOSION :mad:
So why not post in the thread about "liquid fuel fireballs" rather than here?

I've done a series of experiments 2 days ago to back up my suggestion about FAE ignition timing.
I had lots of misfires (not ignited or ONLY a fireball). The last one performed very well. Here's a short description of the setup:

1.5l of petrol sitting in a PE foil bad on top of 3 "AP-sticks" (=3*3g). Next to the petrol a paperback tube of 1.5m height carries a burning ball of newspaper. The AP sticks are detonated by ordinary bridgewire technique, 15m distance.

I've used this ratio of petrol and PA severel times before for creating fireballs. Normally I don't use earplugs, as the petrol absorbs most sonic.
This time I used earplugs, because it was built to create a FAE (hence the elevated ingniting fire). I was right to use them...
After pushing the knob I heard a deep BOOOOOOOMMMM and saw a fire ball that quickly rose. And I felt a shock wave shaking my jacket and trousers :eek: - yeah, that's how fun blasting is supposed to feel! :)

A few conclusions from my experiments:
I tried severel elevated charges, i.e. petrol bag about 1.8m above the ground, igniting flames on the ground. None of these charges even ignited - most probably because proper placement of the spray charge in the center of gravity of a bag of petrol is difficult.
Also, 'dose' was only 1 AP stick + 0.5l petrol.

Same shit with igniting flames put aside the charge (0.5m distance). No ignition, only a few seconds later the fall out caught fire.

Then I swiched to petrol + lift charge on the ground, igniting flames elevated 1.8m.
The 1 AP stick + 0.5l petrol charge formed a fireball, much drop out and but not much sonic.
As reported, scaling up by factor 3 and reducing ignition height - mainly because I was frightened of getting close to ideal explosion mixture - it excelled in performance. But still, I would say, the ignition charge should be placed higher for a more violent explosion. There was enough fuel in the fireball to burn one more second or two. The lower part of the fire column was blown away by the explosion withing fractions of a second. Nearly no burning fallout.

My conclusion is: yeah, FAE ignition with a flame at a calculated height above the lift charge works well.

[akinrog]

I have found the following links during my web searches. The first link is a PDF which describes FAE concept in EOD's point of wiev. The first link (which is a PDF file) gives detailed description regarding the composion, timing initiation etc. of FAEs and also describes the differences between the FAE, thermobaric and EBM (Enhanced Blast Munitions). What is interesting the pdf also contains info on types of FAE devices (including the implosion type) and how to initiate the FA cloud chemically).

In addition I also found the ImplosionFAE.pdf too (which is solely related to mothball device).
The last link is a description of FAE with some good animated gifs to demonstrate explosions.

I don't want to downgrade the forum's quality. I mean the following may be a little bit kewlish (as you refer to it) or a hype. However while searching for FAE, I came across a site which gives an account of Oklohama City Bombing. The page discusses unbelievable damage inflicted by the perpetrator's device the page includes some other possibilities and conspiracy theories for possible huge damage created by such a device. Amongst the other possibilities there is another device called "A-neutronic 3om3" (or "Electro-Hydrodynamic Gaseous Fuel Device"). I searched this term on the net and found almost nothing valuable or concrete (of course regarding the genuity, construction, concept and efficiency of the device). Any comments by senior members are welcome.

Anyway here is the links
http://www.gichd.ch/pdf/TN_09_30__04__2001_FAE%20_Version%201.pdf
http://home.conceptsfa.nl/~sniper/Pyro/Bestanden/ImplosionFAE.pdf
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/fae.htm

[undertow]

Useful link here: http://www.gexcon.com/index.php?src=handbook/GEXHBchap1.htm

A lot of good information on gas explosions, chapters 5 and 6 are especially interesting.

[UnLoOpy]

I have been reading P.33-42 in "The Anarchist Arsenal" by David Harber (yes I know I have been warned that this book is not a replacement for proper literature by professionals like Urbanski or Fedoroff, but this particular section was very interesting), where he talks about Fuel-Air Explosives.

He refers to and gives the basic idea behind a "gas-enhanced bomb", where the pressurized contents of a propane tank are suddenly released using bursting charges (sheet charges, like the ones that come in packets in the military with adhesive on one side to stick onto something) placed symetrically to allow the fuel to disperse, followed 0.1-0.2 iseconds later by the detonation of the primary.

He claims that this type of explosion was used during the 1983 attack on Marine Barracks in Beirut. According to him, 12,000lbs of TNT would have been required to do the same damage as the 600lbs of an RDX composite with propane booster that was actually employed.


I am wondering if this reflection is based more on the length of the shock etc, more than the actual velocity. If detonated in front of a structure would propane-boosted semtex produce the same amount of damage as a much greater amount of semtex? (if not 20 times more as indicated by Harber, around how much?)

Also if the fuel tank was burst assymetrically and the gas was 90% dispersed to a specific side how would this affect the explosion? Increase damage in the direction of the gas movement or would it remain the same (or lower) because the primary explosion is no longer in the center of the cloud?

Any insight would be appreciated, Thanks.

[Dallas Dave]

What about Hydrogen?

What happens if you fill 2 40-litre* bags with hydrogen and put them in a bin and then you light the fuse to it?

1 litre = 1 kilo
1 kilo = 2.25
40 litres = 90lbs
80 litres = 180lbs

^^^^^^^^^^^
NOTE: I am not trying to insult your intelligence. I am merely giving you the calculations.

[simply RED]

I have seen liquid oxigen canisters sold in a shop for fridge reparing. (they use it for the torches). ( 1liter liquid oxigen each!!!)
An interesting idea will be to put 2 of these with 2 propane cans in a 10 liters cheese steel box and add 20 grams HE just to shatter it.

[xyz]

Dallas Dave, you may not have been trying to insult our intelligence, but you succeeded in giving us something to judge your intelligence on :p

Pounds are a measure of WEIGHT, Litres are a measure of VOLUME.

You've got some damn heavy hydrogen there if 40 Litres weighs 90 pounds... :rolleyes:

[Dallas Dave]

Dallas Dave, you may not have been trying to insult our intelligence, but you succeeded in giving us something to judge your intelligence on :p

Pounds are a measure of WEIGHT, Litres are a measure of VOLUME.

You've got some damn heavy hydrogen there if 40 Litres weighs 90 pounds... :rolleyes:

Yeah but litres is a measure of volume.

Which tells us what? Why did you feel the need to elaborate on your description of a 40 litre plastic bag by telling us how much it would weigh if filled with water? Like has been pointed out to you, hydrogen does not have a density of 1.0, so what the FUCK are you going on about?

[Anthony]

If you fill a garbage bag with H2 and lit it, it simply burns. I tried this and expected similar results to party balloons filled with H2. I assume that a rubber balloon gives an explosion because the H2 is under pressure, and is released rapidly when the balloon bursts. Thus mixing with atmospheric oxygen and burning rapidly. In the garbage bag is simply burnt like you would expect propane to.

SimplyRED, those oxygen bottles do not contain liquid oxygen. Simply gaseous oxygen under high pressure. IIRC, they contain only ~50gm of O2. The critical temperature of oxygen is -118*C.

[simply RED]

Right!
It is not liquid. Anyway it will have the same effect, only 3,4 cans will be needed.

[nbk2000]

People got the wrong impression of Hydrogen after the Heindenberg burnt up.

The actual cause of the fire was the nitrocellulose+aluminum doping they used to make the fabric gas-tight. The hydrogen merely added fuel to the fire and didn't make the fire more vigorous like it would have it was oxygen.

[The_Rsert]

Today I've made some explosive tests (DPPP-, ANNM-, FAE tests).
The first, I've made an aluminum dust (a full teaspoon) FAE and a 330g butane FAE. See the videos I've just attached.

[nuclearattack]

To Rsert:
i saw the videos...let me guess...you simply placed the fuel over the HE charge right?
This in not a real FAE, a FAE use two charges one for fuel dispersion and another that works as a detonator. Of course it is not so easy to detonate 2 charges in the right time. If you have to use the FAE indoor you can simply place a small charge on the floor and open a gas container, the charge should have a remote control to detonate it. I think this should work well but i never tried this because i don't have the right isolated place to do this.
About an outdoor FAE you need the two charges system but has i sayd it is very hard...
However i'm thinking about a possibility...why not a detcord to detonate the second charge after the right time? This should be possible even with a homemade device.

[The_Rsert]

See the pics I've just attached

The pic (http://www.roguesci.org/theforum/attachment.php?attachmentid=555) is another blasted (with DPPP) 190g butane tank, but the butane gas was not lighted because I've used nor flare or a fire.

[nbk2000]

Has anyone been able to play the videos Rsert upp'ed?

[The_Rsert]

I'm using Dr.DivX for ecoding.

Your PC have to be faster than 450mhz and must have one of the latest DviX codecs.

You can download the latest DivX codec at http://www.divx.com/divx/download/.

[The_Duke]

Hmm. I can view the attached images just fine by right clicking, then saving the target as and I do NOT have DivX. :)

[The_Rsert]

To The_Duke:
Images are not the theme. -Videos are the problem!

Maybe I will try the same what I do with the aludust with simple fine corn flour.

[nuclearattack]

To NBK:
i can see the videos perfectly. Maybe you don't have the last codec?

[nbk2000]

From LANL's website:


One compound the team has synthesized is DHT (dihydrazino-tetrazine). Because it is both a high-nitrogen and a high-hydrogen compound, it tends to burn hotter in air, forming both nitrogen gas and water. These characteristics make it a candidate for so-called thermobaric bombs. First used in Afghanistan during the March 2002 attacks on Al Qaeda caves, these bombs use a primary explosion to propel a solid-fuel explosive into a tunnel, bunker, or cave. The secondary explosive then detonates via a delayed fuse to generate both high heat (therme) and high pressure (baros) within the enclosed space. Finely divided fragments of aluminum metal are often included in the solid explosive, because in the high-energy environment of the explosion, aluminum oxidizes in air. Forming aluminum oxide, this reaction both consumes significant oxygen and generates additional heat (it is highly exothermic).

The army and navy are testing DHT-aluminum as a candidate explosive because, in addition to its high density, its detonation also generates significant volumes of nitrogen gas. When the gas replaces the oxygen consumed by the burning aluminum, a nitrogen-rich atmosphere is created that leads to nitrogen narcosis in anyone exposed to it. This physiological phenomenon was originally described in deep-sea divers. As the total gas pressure increases with increasing dive depth, the partial pressure of nitrogen increases, and more nitrogen becomes dissolved in the blood—and therefore in the brain. Dubbed "rapture of the deep," this misnomer alludes to the fact that nitrogen's intoxicant and soporific effects are equivalent to those of one martini on an empty stomach for each 50 feet beyond a 100-foot dive. Since nitrogen impairs the conduction of nerve impulses, at very high brain concentrations, nitrogen narcosis is fatal.

[akinrog]

Recently I have translated some documents related to operation of diesel engines. As you know diesel engines do not use sparking plugs to ignite the compressed air-fuel mixture. Instead it compresses air to a certain degree thereby causing it to heat up and when piston reaches TDC (Top Dead Center) the diesel oil injected by injectors to effect combustion.

This may explain the ignition mechanism of the implosion type FAE device.

I mean when an implosion type device is used which contains at the center a fragile tube containing some sort of flash mixture and puffed rice (whatever it means) (presence of puffed rice means that the fragile tube contains air voids in it), the pressure created by the implosion compresses the fragile tube and (maybe?) heating it up to combustion temperature. Can this be an explanation for the ignition of this type of device? And what about adding some diesel oil to the mixture? Shall it enhance its performance? Just food for thought.

[fluoroantimonic]

I have a little to add on this subject. Please excuse me if I restate something, I read the thread, but it is 3 AM, I might have missed something.

There seems to be a great deal of confusion throughout this thread. Every plan I've seen in the thread so far will never result in a detonation, just a deflagration. Sure this is enough to damage a building from the inside, but it is not a real FAE as I understand it! A real FAE is an actual detonation with a VOD of thousands of M/s and a very high overpressure, not like RDX mind you, but a hell of a lot better than 30 psi. A cloud of gasoline will be extremely reluctant to do that no matter how you treat it.

Is a true fuel-air detonation even possible with simple hydrocarbons? Maybe acetylene, but the problem with that is dispersing it. The way real FAEs are dispersed is by aerosol, which subsequently vaporize and provide a good mix with the air. If you try to disperse a gas like C2H2 or H2 it will expand in a cloud pushing the air out of the way, only mixing at the edges and making it very hard to accomplish anything but a deflagration. Also it is hard to hold large amounts of acetylene or hydrogen in a small package that can be released quickly. No matter of tricky your charge design is, I don't think you will ever get your propane or gasoline to detonate either. Sure you'll get a pretty fireball, but that won't do you much good for crushing the lungs of your enemies.

As I understand it a fuel air mixture is almost like a conventional explosive in that its properties vary greatly with different fuels. Certain fuels will be more sensitive than others, some will have higher VODs than others, some will have larger critical diameters than others. So trying to get an insensitive fuel air mix (propane for example) to detonate with any force by using a flame or spark is like trying to DDT RDX. It may be possible but its far from easy. With a boost of a high VOD explosive on the other hand, it may be easier, still not simple. More sensitive fuels are much easier to "DDT" which is why a large cloud of ethylene oxide could probably reliably be detonated with something other than an explosive shockwave. Even then AFAIK the only way to get a real, full, detonation of a fuel air mix is with an explosive booster. Things like propane also have a very small mixture range that can be detonated, making it even harder to get the conditions right.

As I see it there are two problem that hold us back from unlocking the vast potential of FAEs. Number 1 is the fuel. AFAIK the military uses a mixture of ethylene oxide and propylene oxide. This allows lower vapor pressures to make the casings lighter, handling easier, and reduces problematic polymerization of pure ethylene oxide. Propylene oxide is also much less toxic. Straight propylene oxide can be used but is much harder to detonate. Other fuels have been used, but none are as cheap and effective on a large scale and I believe few are as easy to detonate. There may be others that are more suitable for the amateur, I'll have to look into alternative fuels. Alkyl oxides are by no means OTC, but with the right setup they could be manufactured clandestinely without too much trouble, the raw materials are fairly easy.

Problem number 2 is ignition. Military designs that I have seen usually incorporate a casing with a main charge in the center and two or more secondary charges surrounding it. The main charge aerosolizes the fuel and scatters the secondary charges that subsequently detonate when the fuel cloud is at the optimum mixture with the air. How this is timed accurately remains a mystery to me. It seems to require fairly exact timing. I'm sure there are multiple ways for the amateur to rig it up. What comes to mind first is an electrical circuit that is set to fire a main charge first and then X number of milliseconds later fire a few secondary charges that are preplaced at the right distance. This seems fairly simple, but the distances, fuel:explosive ratios, timing, etc. are all unknown to me and would probably require large amounts of experimentation to figure out the ideal relationships. Patents are sure to help on this front.

I'll try to add more when I have the time and energy..

Maybe there should be separate threads for true FAEs and for deflagrations (for demolishing buildings and such)?

[fluoroantimonic]

Well I can't edit so I'll make another post.

I failed to mention any actual numbers in the above post. I will do so now.

Ethylene oxide:
Detonates from 3-100% by vol (another states 5-21% ??)
Boils at 10*C
50 ppm for 8 hours is max safe concentration

Propylene oxide:
Detonates from 3-28% (another states 5-10% ??)
Boils at 34*C
100 ppm for 8 hours max safe concentration

1,2 Butylene oxide
Detonates in 3-25%
Boils at 63*C
400 ppm for 8 hours is max safe concentration

Propane
Detonates in 3-7%
Boils at -40*C
Basically nontoxic

Methyl acetylene
Flammable limits (detonation limits not available) 2-16%
Boils at -20*C
Safe <1000 ppm

I have also found a patent on the use of a chemical catalyst to initiate the detonation of the fuel air mixture. Catalysts mentioned were ferrocene and carboranes. They apparently gave good results when mixed 2-10% with diesel fuel and dispersed with primacord. Unfortunately all the catalysts mentioned where quite exotic and not to my knowledge easily synthesized or acquired. Still this is worth looking into because it eliminates the large problem of timing and spacing the ignition charge.

I just found a very interesting "Invention Registration" that details a built from mostly OTC materials and requiring no metal work. It is US H1457. It is really worth your time to look at. Basically consists of a soda bottle with a PVC tube down the center that contains a piece of detcord and a detonator. Very simple. It does unfortunately require an appropriately distanced cloud detonator and a suitable timing circuit to initiate it. It does give specifics that are very useful.

For example:
2 liter bottle is filled with propylene oxide
13 inches of 1/2 inch PVC is inserted. It contains two 9 inch pieces of 100 grain/foot primacord and an electrical detonator. It is capped at the bottom sealed at the top with duck cement. The bursting explosive should weigh 1/100 to 1/250 the weight of the fuel.
It produces a 14 foot dia. cloud that is then detonated by 100g C-4 66 milliseconds later.
The C-4 is placed 3 feet from the bottle.

By my quick calculations this should have a yield of roughly 2-3 kg TNT.

Sounds damn good to me. Now the main problem is synthesis of propylene oxide (or butylene).

EDIT: I've done some reading on the synthesis of propylene oxide. One of the best way I've seen so far is gas phase oxidation over a silver catalyst. It proceeds at 200*C at standard pressure in a glass tube with a little special silver catalyst (easy to prepare). Propylene along with air and a little water is fed in. Yields are less than 5% but the propylene is recirculated so its not a problem. Another interesting process is the use of H2O2 with various catalysts to oxidize propylene in a solvent. Much higher yields, but the catalysts would be a bitch. There are many other ways to go about it too.

Propylene itself can be easily synthesized by heating isopropanol with sulfuric acid. It could be condensed with dry ice for easy storage.

[fluoroantimonic]

Things just keep looking better! After staring at patents for hours I've found/devised a method to produce propylene oxide that is far superior to the one I mentioned earlier. It basically consists of the following process:

isopropyl alchohol + sulfuric acid(recycled) --> propylene (unknown yield, maybe 40-60%?)
propylene + hypochlorous acid(from purified bleach) --> propylene chlorohydrin (~40-70% yield)
propylene chlorohydrin + NaOH(KOH, Ca(OH2), etc.) ---> propylene oxide (~75-95% yield)

The yields are all good, none of the materials extremely toxic (outdoors should be fine), no expensive materials or catalysts, all the reactions are fairly fast and simple, and everything looks easily done on a large or small scale. I really couldn't have hoped for a better situation, I believe I have on hand almost every material needed. AFAIK a similar process should work for butylene oxide, although the corresponding alchohol is harder to get.

I hope someone will try this out. I would do it myself but I am currently unable to do any explosives related experimentation. :(

From what I can surmise, on a multi kilogram scale, the effort and money required to make propylene oxide is much less than that required to manufacture an equivalent amount of high explosive like ETN or TNT. AN probably has it beat, but many of us can't get that. More importantly FAEs are very novel, I don't believe I've seen a true fuel air detonation documented by a member of the forum as of yet.

EDIT: I have found some more information on the production of PCH. I found that while it can be produced by adding propylene and chlorine to water, the HCl from the chlorine produces unwanted byproducts. So to greatly reduce this we can use a chloride free HOCl solution. AFAIK this is most easily done by extracting the HOCl with a ketone like MEK or acetone. Acetone has an amazingly high affinity for HOCl and is very efficient at extracting it from water. The HOCl is most easily produced by dissolving chlorine in a Na2CO3 or NaOH solution and then extracting with about 1/2 the solution's volume of acetone. Adding more salt will help reduce acetone's solubility. Water may or maynot need to be added to react propylene with the HOCl, I have a feeling it is not needed. Then the resulting PCH can be easily purified by distilling off the acetone. The PCH is then slowly added to a hot 5-10% NaOH solution and PO distills off substantially pure.

[NameWithheld]

Wow, nice work.

On the other hand... wouldn't it be a lot easier for most people to use dissolved acetylene in acetone?

Commence uninformed and ignorant speculation:

Acetylene has an exceptionally good explosive range of 2.5% to 82%, and acetone isn't too bad either.

Acetylene additionally has the interesting ability to decompose exothermically when exposed to pressures exceeding 14 psi. The heat released by the decomposing acetylene should then help ignite the remaining flammable gases mixed with the compressed hot air behind the shock leading the blast wave.

Or it might not. I don't have any idea what I'm talking about ^_^

Some FAE's could also use a thermobaric charge as the burster. The aluminum from the burster should remain burning long enough to ignite the fuel cloud.

It would be fun to mess around with a several kilo ETN core, surrounded by a pound or two of atomized aluminum, with several acetylene tanks packed around that...

Might not work, but would be to try :D

Man, so hard to keep up with my to-do list...

[fluoroantimonic]

The acetylene/acetone idea is worth a try at least. It may run into some problems though. First off the pressure wave from the bursting charge may decompose the acetylene into products with lower explosive limits. I don't know for sure, maybe it needs more time to decomp, and even if it did I'm sure it could still detonate, just harder to initiate. Also the large portion of acetone in there will surely reduce the explosive limits greatly. In any case it would surely be easier to detonate than something like propane or gasoline. Still not easy though.

The thermoberic charge in itself would be very impressive. In patents there is usually a center charge of high explosive (RDX) with a shell of atomized Al mixed with an oxidizer/fuel like isopropyl nitrate IIRC. Apparently they had problem getting complete combustion of the Al without it. It was my understanding that the particles of Al were getting blown outward too fast to have a chance to oxidize before it was cooled too much. Its been a while since I looked into it.

In other news, I have found that it is possible to chlorinate propylene glycol directly to propylene chlorohydrin with HCl. This would greatly simplify everything, propylene glycol being pretty cheap and OTC and the production of propylene oxide from chlorohydrin being very simple and easy. Unfortunately the industry is only interested in the reverse reaction, making detailed information scarce. It seems that simply running a stream of somewhat dry HCl through 120-160*C glycol for a few hours will do the trick. It should work for butylene glycol (1,4 butanediol) too.

[Yafmot]

You guys are getting all wrapped around the process and losing sight of the goal, which is KABOOM! Why go through all that roundabout shit when you can just go buy PO at a race shop, or at least order it through 'em.

I had a friend who raced Pro Gas (and later Pro Fuel) Harley drag bikes, and he'd buy that stuff by the 5 gallon jugs. I crewed for him at a couple of events, and you could look in any trailer in the pits and find a carboy of the shit. Yeah, it was cheating, but when everybody does it, no one gives a fuck.

Anyway, it was good for a few extra horsepower, at the risk of lifting a head or a whole jug.

[Positron]

You guys are getting all wrapped around the process and losing sight of the goal, which is KABOOM!

Yafmot: Though you've pissed me off to a degree, I will try to exercise some self-restraint.

1. Try not to forget that it is extremely valuable to be able to synthesize your own chemical stock. What happens when your Propylene Oxide goes the way of Ammonium Nitrate? Let me answer that for you. You will thank those on This Forum that were kind enough to GIVE YOU THE FREE INFORMATION to synthesize such things.

2. I appreciate your enthusiasm to see huge bangs, but for many of us, that is NOT the end goal. Believe it or not, there are people on This Forum that enjoy tweaking and optimizing their reactions to near-perfection, whilst not testing their devices until making sure that everything else is RIGHT. For many of us, an optimized, measured, properly-characterized explosive reaction that uses only OTC materials is the ultimate success.

How about a "Thanks" to fluoroantimonic? I, for one, am saving that shit into a PDF as he posts it.

[fluoroantimonic]

You guys are getting all wrapped around the process and losing sight of the goal, which is KABOOM! Why go through all that roundabout shit when you can just go buy PO at a race shop, or at least order it through 'em.

Positron already answered that quite well, he beat me to it. The goal for me is not to make "KABOOM!" (don't get me wrong I like a big detonation as much as the next guy) but to optimize the improvised production of a very misunderstood and little known yet very promising and powerful explosive. I think it is very valuable to have (or better distribute) the practical knowledge and information necessary to build such a powerful weapon if the need arises. If you want to buy something to make a bang there are much cheaper and easier ways than PO. Maybe try some cheap BP in a pipe? Dry ice in 2 liter bottles might satisfy you too.

For many of us, an optimized, measured, properly-characterized explosive reaction that uses only OTC materials is the ultimate success.
Exactly, doubt I could have said it better.

How about a "Thanks" to fluoroantimonic? I, for one, am saving that shit into a PDF as he posts it.
:) Thank you, I'm glad to know someone appreciates it. I uploaded some notes that I wrote up to keep my thoughts organized, I calculated it all out. I will compile some references and upload them too some time.

Another interesting possibility for a FAE is isopropyl nitrate. It is effective at a wide range of concentrations, powerful (don't know how it compares to PO) and much less toxic than PO. It is actually an insensitive explosive in liquid form, similar to NM AFAIK, even makes an analogue of ANNM when mixed with AN. Also amazingly it can be synthesized with just isopropyl alchohol an 70% nitric acid, no sulfuric needed. It's synthesis is touchy though, container size, temperature, concentration, etc can make or break it. Still, it is definitely worth pursuing, it has the potential to be for cost and time effective that PO. I will post more on that when I have time.

[Alexires]

Good job fluoroantimonic, keep up the good work.

FAE's do look like a promising area that is now just opening up the amateur experimenter, and certainly holds the potential to be included in our arsenals as some of our most powerful and exciting experiments.

I for one am very interested to hear the effectiveness of Isopropyl Nitrate as a FAE and look forward to your next post.

[cerberus101]

Timing is important here chaps, 1-2 sec delay on the second charge is just too much, you need something closer to 5-10ms delay.

[fluoroantimonic]

The time delays I have seen mentioned in patents ranged from 10 to 120 ms depending on the composition and many other parameters. They are always a special pyrotechnic mix that is ignited by the same primacord that initiates the burster charge. Getting a homemade delay mix that accurate might be hard, I'm not sure. Apparently if you use something like n-propyl nitrate with a brisant enough burster it can self initiate. I imagine this is unreliable though, and would result in less optimal mixing with the air.

As far as IPN goes, I have found fairly little information on it in the context of FAEs. As said earlier I have seen it mentioned frequently as a component of thermobaric compositions, but never FAEs. I'm not sure why this is. Interestingly n-propyl nitrate is commonly cited as an effective fuel for FAEs in quite a few patents, along with ethyl nitrate. They also say that their design should work with many other fuels, who knows. NPN and IPN are very similar in all respects AFAIK, I don't see any reason IPN wouldn't work just as well. But it is strange you never see it mentioned...

I have seen several different methods of preparing IPN. Some involve a mixed acid (20% HNO3, 60% H2SO4, 19% H2O, 1% urea) that is used at a reduced pressure (200-400 mm Hg) while constantly distilling off IPN and water. Others use only 50-60% HNO3 with urea and run at cooler temperatures. It is hard to say how these will translate into small scale synthesis, experimentation will be required. If you were really tricky, you could even try synthesizing propyl chloride and reacting that with a metal nitrate. That would probably be a pain in the ass on a large scale.

I also found an interesting method for desensitizing liquid explosives, particularly NPN. Apparently adding 1 or 2 percent of a "low gamma gas" will result in greatly desensitizing the small gas bubbles that can initiate the whole mass when compressed. Examples were butane, diethyl and dimethyl ether, chloroform, and a few others. It would be interesting to see actually drop test data on this.

IPN is definately a better fuel in terms of ease of detonation and power compared to PO or EO. Even so, I'm not liking the fact that it has to be nitrated, meaning either H2SO4 and XNO3 or straight HNO3 must be available. All of those I could see easily disappearing, especially the acids. Also nitrations are a general pain in the ass, if they could be avoided I would be a happy man. Epoxides on the other hand need none of the above. Both are worthy of experimentation in my opinion. If IPN could be pulled off relatively easily, I think it would be the ideal fuel.

A couple other points of interest I have run across recently that I thought I'd toss in for the enjoyment of all:

Use of powdered high explosives in FAEs. It is very powerful and has a much longer shock wave. Interesting idea. I've even seen a patent that combined powdered RDX or PETN with NPN to make some real kick ass FAEs.

Nitroformates. Nitroform is fairly easily produced from a large excess 70% HNO3 mixed with isopropanol. While nitroform itself is not stable above 20*C it is a fairly strong acid and is capable of making all kinds of interesting salts. They have the handy property of having a very high OB. The silver salt is apparently a decent primary. The salts of things like triaminoguanidine are also interesting high explosives only recently discovered.

Edit:
I just found the attached paper on the detonation characteristics of IPN. It has some very valuable info in it. 2000 m/s! That's not too bad in my opinion.

[Yafmot]

Okay, now that I've been properly chastised and put in my place, let the record show that, for one thing, I fully appreciate the need for having an ability to improvise processes to manufacture constituent materials and, for another, that I am not given to taking shortcuts on something as critical as these activities. In fact, I refuse to initiate a project without having all the necessary materials and equipment at hand. And being a pilot, I prefer to work with a checklist on anything more complex than cooking breakfast.

What I was getting at in my last post was that, if you're investigating the efficacy of PO in certain thermobaric mixes, it pays to collect your data using ingredients of known purity. Then, once you've established that the PO will work with such and such a fuel, you can concentrate on making your own and compare its performance with a baseline that's a known quantity/quality. Any discrepancies between the two will go a long way toward telling you what you're doing wrong in your synthesis, if anything.

Regarding staggered triggering, it seems to me that there may be a way to go inside an MSD ignition box and alter the delay time between the two pulses, or maybe even make it adjustable. For you non-motorheads, "MSD" means "Multiple Spark Discharge," and is also the name of a company that makes them. The idea behind it is that one spark generates a "kernel" of plasma and flame, and a couple of milliseconds later a second burst scatters it into the air/fuel mixture in all directions, ensuring more complete combustion & hence more efficiency/horsepower.

The field of electronics is hardly my strong suit, but I'm pretty sure some of you electron herders could figure out a way to adjust the delay between the first and subsequent discharges, along with some method of splitting the output between two circuits, one for the dispersion charge, and one for the detonator.

The delay time would, I imagine, depend on the actual physics of the event. For instance, a metal powder would no doubt disperse at a different rate than a hydrocarbon liquid or gas, and require a different amount of energy input for the dispersal. Also, liquids of varying viscosity and density would require adjustment of forces, in order to assure proper droplet size.

And I wouldn't rule out the use of some sort of containment bag. You could get a roll of 2 mil polyethylene film, some cellophane packing tape, and maybe a couple of extra hands, and put together something on the order of a hot air balloon in size. Or, if you find you need something a little tougher, you could use some of that film they use for vacuum bagging composite parts. Airtech International makes a co-extruded nylon film which, due to conformability requirements, is extremely resistant to tearing and punctures and is, in fact, reusable on the same mold/part. It's very strong, and it would be interesting to see the effect of containment on thermobaric reactions, much like the difference between a freestanding pile of flash versus the same amount in a heavy-walled, well sealed vessel. This experiment wouldn't require anything elaborate. Just some Oxygen and Acetylene of the same amount and proportions in an ordinary trash bag as opposed to an identical bag reinforced with something like fiberglass strapping tape.

Back to droplet size, aerial applicators (crop dusters) have to pay strict attention to it when spraying and, depending on the material being dispersed, utilize diluents ranging from kerosene to exotic alcohols to plain old water. There are whole books devoted to the subject, and they may be of some help. Or just call some crop dusting outfit and start asking questions. A word of caution, however. This is a very high pressure occupation, and at certain times of the year they're so swamped in work that they just flat don't have the time for you, and they can get a little grumpy.

I just respect the hell out of 'em, though. They've got to be experts in Toxicology, Entomology, Soil Geology, Plant Biology, Meteorology, Micrometeorology, Nemotology, and be a hot stick besides. This is not to mention all the various government agencies, permits, licenses and fees they have to deal with. Taken as a whole, it's a wonder anybody does this shit, so cut 'em some slack if they sound a little less than gracious.

One other thing. Nitrous oxide, IMHO, shows a lot of promise for both dispersal and as an ingredient. One manufacturer makes a system for drag racing called "Pro Fogger." As the name implies it makes an aerosol "fog" of extremely fine droplets and, if set up right, will deliver a stoichiometrically correct mixture of fuel and N2O. I have already discussed the exact mechanism behind the superiority of N2O vs. O2 in a previous post on another thread. This "fogger" has a 2 into 1 mixing nozzle which delivers a large volume of fuel/oxidizer very quickly and may, in fact, be useful in a liquid fuel rocket motor. It's pretty cheap, too.

N2O spraying some #2 diesel (or maybe Jet-A) with a little PO in it? In a confined, controlled volume? Seems to add up pretty well for me. And once you've accumulated enough empirical data, you could probably get pretty good at cakculating the power of the thing, and use different sized charges for different applications. Or maybe build a conical bag and go for a giant shaped charge? They make hot air ballons in all kinds of oddball shapes & sizes, and it doesn't seem like much of a jump to apply these techniques to the construction of a hollow cone with a stem on it, or perhaps a two dimentional shaped charge, like a "Y" section demo strip, which is something like Detcord, but meant for cutting. The point is, you may be able to directionalize these potentially huge explosions, providing a force multiplication analogous to the difference between freefall and guided bombs.

So, whaddaya' think?

[Positron]

Yafmot, yeah, you were jumped on pretty hard. I guess it was just how your post looked at first, but it is clear that you don't really feel that way. No worries.

Electronic Timing: It would be exceedingly simple to build an adjustable time delay circuit, using parts from Radio Shack. Two NE555 timer chips, a small assortment of resistors and capacitors, and you'll have it. Very low power circuit too, excellent for battery power. Exact component values (capacitors and resistors on pins 2,6,7) will need tweaking to get the required delay time.

Radio Shack seems to be getting rid of their component-level stuff though, selling only "consumer electronics" on the shelf :( Sad. They used to carry a lot of great stuff.

See the "Generating a Time Delay" schematic near the bottom of the page:

http://www.ee.iitb.ac.in/~teesa/presentations%20lectures%20workshops/electrified/480_555.htm

The signal for the dispersion explosion comes from Pin 3 of the first 555 chip.

The signal for the fuel-air initiating explosion comes from Pin 3 of the second 555 chip (circuit output).

Some development required :cool:

[Alexires]

Any discrepancies between the two will go a long way toward telling you what you're doing wrong in your synthesis, if anything.

I think you would want to do some analytical tests to make sure that what you have is what you want, in what purity,etc. There are too many variables to buy a batch, make a batch and test them to get an idea of purity.

For instance, a metal powder would no doubt disperse at a different rate than a hydrocarbon liquid or gas, and require a different amount of energy input for the dispersal. Also, liquids of varying viscosity and density would require adjustment of forces, in order to assure proper droplet size.

I would think that the kind of metal powder you would be using would be so fine it acts like a liquid anyway. Is there a proper droplet size? I would have assumed that the finer it is, the better (more surface area, less internal volume so more brissance due to more energy per unit time output).

And I wouldn't rule out the use of some sort of containment bag.

Hmmmm. I don't know if this would have the effect you want. See, when you contain low explosives the increase in pressure/temperature certainly helps to increase burn rate. Hence more confinement=louder bang.

But in this case, we have something that burns like a low explosive, probably approaching the same order of magnitude as actual high explosives. By the time the pressure wave reaches the confinement, all the fuel is gone anyway.

You might be able to get the effect of having one go off in a cave by having multiple explosives go off around it so that their pressure fronts interact with the pressure front of the FAE/Thermobaric acting to "focus" the blast, but I don't think anyone that doesn't have government backing would be able to try it.

N2O spraying some #2 diesel (or maybe Jet-A) with a little PO in it?


Sounds like an interesting idea. If you have seen the movie "Underworld: Evolution" you would have definately noticed those small "grenade" like FAE devices they toss into the room. N2O/PO mix being sprayed out of one, some sparks/small initiator to set it off and suddenly you have something resembling the "bang" in flash-bang (at the very least)


Or maybe build a conical bag and go for a giant shaped charge?

Don't know about that. The power of the shaped charge comes from the liquid jet of metal it sprays around, not so much the actual explosive force that it directs. I think the beauty of the FAE is that you can get so much bang for your buck. It isn't that it is a strong explosive or anything like that, but the sheer size we are talking about is rather large, and that is what gives it power.

Positron - That is probably the easier path. Like many though, I don't really know much about electronics (but surely it wouldn't be too hard to learn enough to apply it here). The only thing I was be worried about is how much current/voltage the unit can handle. We would need enough to set off some initiators and it might not be able to take it.

[Positron]

Positron - That is probably the easier path. Like many though, I don't really know much about electronics (but surely it wouldn't be too hard to learn enough to apply it here). The only thing I was be worried about is how much current/voltage the unit can handle. We would need enough to set off some initiators and it might not be able to take it.

You are absolutely correct in that there wouldn't be enough current available from the 555 timer itself (300mA max before the part dies). But, a single MOSFET transistor will convert the feeble output of the 555 into high current signals necessary to fire the detonators/initiators. Nowadays, 200 volt, 75 amp, SMALL, transistors are commonly available. That's a ton of current for one little (size of a U.S. dime) part. Amazing.

But yeah, I guess this type of thing would be "exceedingly simple" for "electron herders" only :D Yafmot, that's hilarious, haven't heard that one before.

Sounds like I need to work on the circuit one of these evenings, draw the optimized schematic, take pictures and post up. If you have a serious project going and are in need of this information quickly...PM me, I will make it higher priority.

[Alexires]

Positron - Sounds good. I know there would be many on here that will appreciate your hard work. No need to hurry for my sake, I'm busy with other things at the moment.

[fluoroantimonic]

@Yafmot- I see what you are saying. That's not a bad idea, bit there are other easy ways of determining the purity of PO. Boiling point is an easy one, no other impurities in the process have one that is very close.

N2O is interesting indeed. IIRC mixtures with H2 have some unusually high det velocities and pressures. I've seen several papers on the actual detonation performance of N2O/fuel mixtures, I'll upload them if I can find them. It is in general more powerful than air and sometimes better than O2 when oxidizing the usual fuels. It is also convenient because it can be liquefied and stored easily. I'm not sure how useful it is for FAEs though, as implementing it in combination with a fuel would probably make things much more complicated. FAE kindof implies air will be used anyway.

@Positron- I agree a 555 is probably the way to go here. You might run into problems if you tried to rig that up to work in a self contained unit, like a air dropped bomb setup. Not a problem for us though. Electronics is not my strong suit, but I may do some research when I get time.

A couple interesting ideas, some briefly mentioned already:

Aluminum powder in air have been found to be very powerful when detonated. A mixture of 400g Al per cubic meter gave a velocity of 1600 m/s and a pressure of 870 psi. Granted this was in a semicontained test rig, so you wouldn't get those numbers in the real world. Still, it is powerful, for comparison an ideal mix of ethylene and air makes 1700 m/s and 270 psi in the same setup. Unfortunately the paper does not give specifications on the Al powder, only that it is "flaked". I am sure a good ball mill could produce perfectly usable powder. Hmm, maybe adding some commercially available super fine telfon powder would give some interesting results..

Chemically precipitated Al powder could be far more powerful in many applications. It can be produced below 100 nanometers in size, while the best ball mill can only do 10,000! This would surely provide a huge increase in power in most applications, including FAE, metalized explosives, thermobarics, pyrotechnics, etc. The process is even fairly simple, all liquid phase in toluene. Unfortunately some of the precoursers are hard to get and/or very expensive like lithium aluminum hydride. Still it has a lot of potential. See US Patent 5885321.

Non explosive fuel dispersion is an interesting possibility. It has potential to be more consistent and powerful that explosive dispersion. It has problems though, the droplets must be very fine and yet dispersed very quickly (at least when done in open air). There are different ways of doing this, none I've seen so far looked very simple or easy. The basically consisted of a strong cylinder with a nozzle on one end, a piston in the middle, and a pyrotechnic gas generator on the other end. On one side of the piston lies the fuel that is forced quickly through the nozzle(s) by very high pressure gas produced on the other side of the piston the the gas generator (slow gunpowder, nitroguanidine, etc). This may be doable on a fairly small scale, but scale up would be very hard. I'm thinking a large hydrolic cylinder could be rigged up. I don't know how the nozzles or gas generator would be made though...

More later, I'm tired.

[Cobalt.45]

Too bad that chemically precipitated Al powder seems to be beyond the scope of the home chemist. It would be great to be able to process Al to nanometer scale, but it would surely be pyrophoric and would require special handling.

Maybe you could take advantage of the pyrophoricity for an ignition source. Use N2O to mist the fuel and ignite it w/a blast of nano-Al carried in an inert gas.

How about hypergolic fuels, one as a dispersant for the fuel, the other added to become the ignition source.

[-=HeX=-]

Well, chemically produced Iron powder of pyrophoric nature is readily available to the home chemist via heating of iron oxalate. This route is documented on amazingrust.com as pyrophoric iron. This could be used as the ignition source, mixed with the fuel, when the fuel disperses the iron particles will react with the air and ignite.

The iron particles are dispersed in the fuel and will all evenly ignite th fuel at about the same time, given that the fuel and iron are mixed intimately and evenly. Well, at least in theory. I may test this once I start synthing and testing again.

[Yafmot]

Oh, and I forgot to tell you about a product that was in the pages of the racing trade sheets back in the late '90s and early 2000s. They're called "Direct Hits," and they were some little cylindrical devices that went inline between the spark plug and the lead. They had a capacitor and I think maybe an inductor or transformer, too. They were meant primarily for use with multiple spark units. What they did was to take the energy from all those pulses and release it in one big blast.

I've forgotten whether it ups the voltage, the current, or both. I contacted the manufacturer and they sent me a unit for use with small engines. Most have a magneto arrangement, with a flying magnet embedded in the flywheel/blower, and a counterweight on the opposite side. The magnet "flies" past a coil that also has a transformer, and as its proximity gets closer it begins inducing a current in the primary coil. As the density of the field gets stronger in juxtaposition to the coil, the field in the transformer collapses, releasing the charge to the plug wire. This isn't the whole story though. The magnet is still going by the coil, and therefore still inducing a current, resulting in a rather long power pulse.

What the device does in this case is hold off the discharge across the electrodes until it can release all the energy from the pulse in a much shorter time frame. I'll have to dig out the papers the designer gave me on it, but the difference is on the order of going from about 2 milliseconds to about 800 picoseconds. That's real quick, freinds.

This isn't as far fetched as you might think. The designer is a physicist who used to work on nuke triggers down in New Mexico. I don't know if it was Sandia, Los Alamos, AFRL @ Kirtland AFB, or maybe all of 'em. I do know that he loaded up my ear with way more than I could digest in one sitting. He's not actually with the company that makes them, but they do work closely. The company sent me a stack of papers, His, theirs and other's, and I guess I'd better dig 'em out. In addition to ignition, There might be enough energy living in there to drive an exploding wire detonator. When you're talking about going from millijoules to kilojoules, this definitely bears some looking into. He also mentions that he does consulting, scaleups and the like, so I'd better give him a call, too. Can't you just imagine discharging a bank of those big, multi-Farad, oil filled caps into a giant one of these?

And I'm not kidding about that fogger system. This isn't like some fog system on a rock & roll stage. These things kick that shit out at a rate sufficient to provide 800 extra horsepower INSTANTLY! And you can always buy extra nozzles, since theres not much to 'em, and they're pretty cheap. so you can just gang a bunch of 'em together if you have to. And the pumps, check, bypass & solenoid valves, and the plumbing aren't that bad, either. and you could eliminate the pumps altogether by just pressurizing your tanks with N2. All told, the system should run about $100. You could fill an average living room in about a second or less. Or scale it up and fill a hot air balloon, or a pieced together plastic bag the same size.

Needless to say, you'd have to test this way out in the desert someplace.

So, whaddaya' think?

[Yafmot]

Oh, and Alexires, Re your reply concerning conical charges on post #175, I'm not trying to penetrate anything, but merely to directionalize the blast effects. And it may come to pass that a stronger bag material, for containment, might provide an enhancement of blast effects, much like flash in a tight, heavy-walled tube vs. a flimsier one, but that's not the main goal either. All I want to do is force the cloud to hold a shape.

This would be useful for a number of applications. For instance, ther are aerially delivered thermobarics that are detonated some distance from the ground, generally about 100 feet, in order to put the blast energy on more structures, vehicles, personell etc. This is done suspended from a parachute. The vapor is blown downward do to the fact that the initiation apparratus stays in the cloud that way (they stick together pretty well in the lateral plane, both being free bodies in a moving fluid). Initiation occurs at or near the center of the cloud, meaning that the blast propagates omnidirectionally. This means that over HALF of the blast energy is just dissipated into the atmosphere, not doing any work on the ground at all.

Bot with an enclosure shaped roughly like a conventional shaped charge, more of this energy will be directed toward the bad guys and their stuff. And it also may be more effective at clearing tunnels. A somewhat elongated version might well send an effective shock further down the tunnel network, and with air-mobile observers watching around the mountain, any dust plumes from other entrances would give away their location so they can be immediately marked for further investigation.

Of course, something like this would probably have to be positioned by hand, but I know plenty of special operators who would love to do it. Navy SEALs, Army Special Forces and SOG operators, Air Force PJs (who are the ones who rescue the other two when their tit's in the wringer), they're all awesome. And every one I've met has this one, shining attribute: When it's time for buisness, he's ALL BALLS.

That's what I've got in mind, anyway.

So, Whaddaya think?

[Positron]

They're called "Direct Hits," and they were some little cylindrical devices that went inline between the spark plug and the lead.

What they did was to take the energy from all those pulses and release it in one big blast.

And where does the energy go from there? What in the hell are you talking about? Seriously man, a fucking spark is a spark. If it sparks, it works. A bigger spark, faster spark, hotter spark, more sparking points, ETC. is NOT going to increase engine performance by anything more than a small amount if the damn spark plug already worked before.

I'll have to dig out the papers the designer gave me on it, but the difference is on the order of going from about 2 milliseconds to about 800 picoseconds.

800pS? So your "designer" has coaxial cable, waveguide, or some other kind of RF transmission line going to every spark plug? You've got to be kidding me :rolleyes:

There might be enough energy living in there to drive an exploding wire detonator.

No thanks, I don't want to have to move a magnet past a coil really goddamn fast to generate the pulse :rolleyes:. The little 10-ish Joule capacitors that have been used in the industry for years work just fine. They are small, easily charged, simple, cheap, highly effective.

These things kick that shit out at a rate sufficient to provide 800 extra horsepower INSTANTLY!

Did you just say that something that goes "between the spark plug and lead" increases horsepower by 800HP? Dude...you need to stop, take a step back, and think about that for a minute.

Can't you just imagine discharging a bank of those big, multi-Farad, oil filled caps into a giant one of these?

Why in the hell would you want to do that? Why don't you PM me and explain, so as to not waste anyone else's time.

[Cobalt.45]

sufficient to provide 800 extra horsepower INSTANTLY! ... All told, the system should run about $100.OT, but the rule of thumb in re nitrous oxide set-ups for cars is to add 50% more horsepower by nitrous than the engine makes naturally aspirated. An 800 hp increase is more than any stock or mildly modified engine could take w/o a CATO.

There are much easier ways to trigger an ignition box than using a flying magnet magneto.

The cost for the hardware to plumb nitrous to an outlet jet w/gasoline under enough pressure and volume to "fill an average living room in about a second or less" might surprise you- good high volume, high pressure pumps can run upwards of $600 each, and pressurizing the fuel tank w/nitrous would require the tank to be enormous.

Did you just say that something that goes "between the spark plug and lead" increases horsepower by 800HP? Dude...you need to stop, take a step back, and think about that for a minute.No, that's not what he said.

Yo, Positron- I ain't no mod, but unless there's bad blood between you and Yafmot, I think you need to lighten up some! We're friends here (for the most part) and kicking around ideas is where much of the advancements come from.

[Positron]

Point taken Cobalt .45. There's no bad blood, but after trying, I had much trouble putting together much of anything he said. I'll back off. Yafmot, please accept my apology.

[Yafmot]

Positron, first of all, I never said that the device REQUIRES a flying magnet setup, I was just comparing a lawn mower engine's ignition system with a multiple spark discharge system and the way the device handles each.

Second, "a spark is a spark" huh? Then how come when the spark gets weak your engine runs like shit? I was talking about race motors, not some dogshit Ford with three bald tires and the number of cylinders hitting to match. You know, the ones with the "Stop Global Warming" bumper stickers that you can barely read through the smoke. And where does the energy go from there? Into the goddamned spak plug, I had hoped i'd been descriptive enough with what I posted, but to make it easy for you, you stick it on the plug, and then put the lead, excuse me, the wire, onto it. Oh and they require the use of non resistor plugs & wires to work correctly. Otherwise evry radio in the area buzzes.

Third, who said anything about 800 horsepower from a hot spark? That little performance increase was clearly indentified as a result of a high performance Nitrous Oxide injection system. The only time I mentioned the number 800 in reference to ignition was 800 picoseconds, which is the time frame the spark duration is compressed into, thereby raising the peak energy.

By the way, I tested the device on my mower. I let the grass get about 6" tall, put the mower on half choke, and made a couple laps around the yard. It loaded up the sucker to where it would barely pop. The electrodes on the plug were totally coked. Then I installed the device, took off the choke, and ran it for about 20 seconds. I shut it down, pulled the plug, and those electrodes fucking sparkled.

And in regard to scaling up the ignition system, I was talking about initiating a very large air/fuel charge with a very large exploding wire, say about 8 guage.

So, go back and reread those posts. I spent years designing exhaust aftertreatment systems. My real name is on the patent for what is, no shit, the world's most efficient catalytic converter. I've worked with engine designers for Harley-Davidson, Mercury Marine, McCulloch, Briggs & Statton, Caterpiller, John Deere, Mikuni Carburetor, among others. I've done similar work with SouthWest Research Institute (Emissions Control and Fuels & Lubricants divisions), NASA, the Air Force, Navy, US Maritime Administration, and various universities. I've worked with some of the top names in speed equipment; KB Pistons, Turbonetics, Borla Performance, to name a few. I've worked with teams racing cars, boats, airplanes, motorcycles, and I'd work with fucking submarines if they raced 'em. I've developed what I think is a well earned reputation for "putting metal on the mantle" by making machines go faster and stay in one piece.

Anyway, apology accepted.

And Cobalt.45, this "rule of thumb" applies to street engines and, in fact, it's not a good Idea to pump any bone-stock motor with more than about a 100 horsepower increase. You've GOT to build an engine that will take it, particularly the bottom end. I've seen plemty of would-be hotrod heroes grenade their motor because they "overjuiced" it on the induction end without paying attention to the parts that have to take that load.

In performance, charge density is the name of the game. If it aint' on top of the piston, you aint' gonna' get it off the crank. But that piston, and all the other links (wrist pins, rods, bearings, rod & main bearing caps), had better be of adequate strength to handle the loads. Pulverized pistons, bent wrist pins, bent connecting rods, broken connecting rods sticking out of the block, flattened bearings, blued bearing journals, and busted cranks all will put you on the trailer real quick. That's why so many guys wind up going to alcohol burners; their parts budget is a lot lower. And for sreet use, a blower, turbo or otherwise, is a lot more practical. just for the autonomy, if nothing else, since youre not back at the speed shop for a refill every time you drop the hammer.

But yeah, you can get a brief, 800HP boost out of an otherwise 400 HP engine, IF IT'S BUILT STRONG ENOUGH. And yes, an 800 HP class nitrous system could fill a living room with vapor pretty damned quick. And for God's sake, DON"T pressurize a fuel tank with Nitrous Oxide. That would be a thermobaric bomb IN YOUR FACE! I believe I said to use N2, dry Nitrogen, which is pretty much inert. Lots of racers and street heroes use it to pressurize their nitrous tanks, from a separate bottle that's constantly feeding it to the ever-increasing volume (they invert the nitrous tank). Same with fuel, but in a stronger tank & at a somewhat lower pressure.

Hope this clears things up. I've got to go get some sleep.

[Cobalt.45]

I've worked with engine designers for Harley-Davidson, Mercury Marine, McCulloch, Briggs & Statton, Caterpiller, John Deere, Mikuni Carburetor, among others. I've done similar work with SouthWest Research Institute (Emissions Control and Fuels & Lubricants divisions), NASA, the Air Force, Navy, US Maritime Administration, and various universities. I've worked with some of the top names in speed equipment; KB Pistons, Turbonetics, Borla Performance, to name a few. I've worked with teams racing cars, boats, airplanes, motorcycles, and I'd work with fucking submarines if they raced 'em. I've developed what I think is a well earned reputation for "putting metal on the mantle" by making machines go faster and stay in one piece.

Zat so? Impressive… So, can we expect you to share your expertise on this project? http://www.roguesci.org/theforum/showthread.php?p=100887#post100887

Got some questions in re jet sizes and that sort of thing at the moment. Many other details I'm sure you can help with, as well.

I’d also just like to hear your take on things.

[-=HeX=-]

Well lads, enough talk about car engines... Lets get back on topic now shall we? I personally have been looking into fuel air bomb fuels and cant figure out the optimum ratio of propylene oxide to gasoline or naphta (lighter fuel) because I dont have their formulae. I would like to find the mix with the biggest explosive limits. I am planning some fuel air device tests soon enough, once I get the stuff built and prepared I will start planning in earnest.

Has anyone got any ideas for the charge of ETN needed to spread 500 millilitres of gasoline effectively?

[Alexires]

Has anyone got any ideas for the charge of ETN needed to spread 500 millilitres of gasoline effectively?

To spread it effectively, you would want to use a spherical charge and a spherical container to hold the petrol. Have the charge in the dead centre. After that, I would think you wouldn't need much. From videos I have seen, the burster charge is about half the size of the guys hand in length, and about 2 fingers wide. So I would guess that it is about 0.1m in length and with a radius of about 0.02m. That gives it a volume of about 1.3E-4 cubic metres which is about 130cc. Assuming the burster is pressed to about 1.4g/cc then it has a mass of about 180g for the burster.

That was for about 8L of fuel (it's quite hard to see). I would guess that for your .5L you would be looking at something around the range 30g of burster. I doubt it would be anymore than 50g.

[fluoroantimonic]

Shit... I had this nice big reply written up and then it disappeared. I guess that's what I get for not writing it up in Word first.

Too bad that chemically precipitated Al powder seems to be beyond the scope of the home chemist. It would be great to be able to process Al to nanometer scale, but it would surely be pyrophoric and would require special handling.

Well, not as hard as you might think, if you can get ahold of some LAH and a few other things, it would be perfectly doable. As far as spontaneous ignition goes, in patents the powder is mildly passivated with 8% O2 in Ar for a couple minutes before being taken out of the reaction flask. This apparently makes in able to be handled in air.

How about hypergolic fuels, one as a dispersant for the fuel, the other added to become the ignition source.

Unfortunately almost any mixture you can devise will react far too slowly to produce a detonation. There are a few mixture that when dispersed with a big charge of RDX will detonate on there own, but the catalysts are quite impossible to get (BrF3, etc.).

I personally have been looking into fuel air bomb fuels and cant figure out the optimum ratio of propylene oxide to gasoline or naphta (lighter fuel) because I dont have their formulae. I would like to find the mix with the biggest explosive limits.
I think the optimum ratio of PO to gas would be 100% PO :P. But really, adding much gas at all is going to kill your explosive limits, depending on how much you add. You're welcome to try gasoline or gasoline mixtures, but I can tell you right now it will be a major pain in the ass to get it to give you anything but a fireball.

Has anyone got any ideas for the charge of ETN needed to spread 500 millilitres of gasoline effectively?

Generally the burster charge is 0.5 to 2 % of the fuel mass. Obviously this depends on the conditions and the explosive and fuel used. I don't know about gasoline, but if it were PO I would use about 3 or 4g. In one patent the burster (for 2 liters of PO) was a few lengths of det cord in a plastic tube stuck down the center. Depending on the fuel, it may be necessary to buffer the fuel from the direct shockwave as this may cause it to detonate prematurely (fuels like IPN). Or you can just use a low brisance explosive like 40% NG or AN.

The charge shape I have seen used is almost always cylindrical, this minimizes the amount of fuel that gets splattered onto the ground and not detonated. A spherical charge would be ideal for mid air detonation, but the shape is not very practical.

[-=HeX=-]

Thanks for the help guys on designing the charge. I will work out the fuel and other stuff later on, but 100% propylene oxide sounds good, now to get the propylene oxide. He it I available I will use it, otherwise I will just use gasoline or another fuel. I will make one that Is 'just' a fireball and another that will hopefully detonate.

Now to work out how to make the detcord needed and the distance I need to place the secondary charge from the main charge.

[fluoroantimonic]

For sizing and placement of FAEs refer to this (http://www.google.com/patents?id=k14qAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4&dq=H1457). It should have most of the information you need.

If you can get battery grade sulfuric acid, urea, isopropanol, and a (alkali)metal nitrate, you might consider trying to make IPN. It shouldn't be that hard, simply distill some near azeotrope HNO3, make a hot solution of it and add 70-90% isopropanol saturated with urea while distilling off the IPN with the water byproduct and a little unreacted HNO3 and isopropanol. Use an isopropanol to HNO3 molar ratio of around 1:2. Refer to this (http://www.google.com/patents?id=QccZAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4&dq=isopropyl+nitrate+manufacture) and this (http://www.google.com/patents?id=qb9cAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4&dq=isopropyl+nitrate+manufacture) for more details. Wash the condensed product with water and it should be ready to go, just as good or better than PO.

[-=HeX=-]

Flouroantimonic: jesus you are a wealth of information! I just wonder if fuel air devices just happen to be your specialist subject.

Anyways I will probably use a dynamite as the explosive, probably about 60% nitroglycerin. I will post the formulation later. I will use an ETN blasting cap and booster, and ETN detcord to lead to the other charge, which will be straight ETN. That charge will be elevated. There will be 500 millilitres of fuel used. The fuel still has to be decided on, however with my budget it will most likely be gasoline.

The secondary will be a calculated distance from the burster charge. Now to work out amounts, synths to do, and a place to test. Oh, and get a proper camera.

[fluoroantimonic]

I've been thinking about OTC and cheap alternatives to gasoline.
It seems to me that just about anything would work better than gasoline
(considering it is specifically formulated to resist detonation).
I have just found an old military paper on FAE fuels and their properties.
It gives some very valuable information, see it here (http://publications.drdo.gov.in/gsdl/collect/defences/index/assoc/HASH01df/ed1a33ca.dir/doc.pdf). Here are a few ideas for fuels that will be more practical and yet still easy to get:

Acetone. It is useful because it is a very good solvent for all kinds of thing that are effective sensitizers.
Acetylene would probably be a very good sensitizer for it because it is so strongly soluble in acetone.

R/C nitro fuel. This will have 15-40% nitromethane that should work very well as an FAE.
You could also try to purify it to get more concentrated NM that would work well as a sensitizer for other fuels.

Starting fluid. Very volatile and has a high explosive range, it would probably work well enough.

Even diesel fuel should work a little better than gasoline. Still it may be very hard to initiate without a sensitizer.

Here are a few sensitizers I though would be useful, at least if you have access to them:

Nitroglycerine/nitroglycol: If you can get/make much of it, it should make a suberb sensitizer in 2-10% range with another fuel.

ETN or other sensitive high explosives: If you can make enough, ETN dissolved in acetone would make a sensitive and powerful FAE.

MEK/Acetone Peroxide: While not the safest thing, it is very easy to synthesize and may work well when mixed with a fuel like acetone
in the 2-15% range. You really wouldn't even have to handle it while pure, just synthesize it as usual, pour off the water layer to leave the crude liquid MEKP/AP (50/50) and mix directly with acetone. Once dissolved in much acetone it will not detonate. I think this may work very well because AP is said to produce all kinds
of reactive products on explosive decomposition, these products will surely help catalyze the detonation of the fuel.

Personally I think acetone+sensitizer would be the best in your situation. Sometime eventually I hope to do some testing with different fuels and sensitizers.
Unfortunately it gets very cold in the winter where I am, so that may make problems detonating the FAEs.

Another piece of advice, when using a very insensitive fuel it is probably a good idea to oversize your burster charge a bit. According to the above paper, the size of the fuel aerosols is quite important to their sensitivity. A larger and more brisant burster should produce smaller particles of fuel that will be easier to detonate. If you have a volatile and heavily sensitized fuel, there is obviously no need to use a very brisant burster. There are really two factors that determine the best burster. Brisance will be important for insensetive fuel that need to be dispersed into extremely small particles. Things like RDX, PETN, ETN, etc. will be effective for that. Then there is the stoiciometry of the fuel. If it has little oxygen in it, it will require a lot of air and thus need a larger burster to disperse it into more air. Things like diesel that would be best detonated in the 2-5% mixture range will obviously need a larger burster than things like IPN that have much of their own oxygen do not need to be dispersed into near as much air. Also IPN can be detonated as a liquid, so a highly brisant burster is not a good idea for it (unless buffered).

Another obstacle for effective FAE use is the time delay detonation of the booster.
I have looked into 555 timer circuits and found that it would be quite cheap and simple to rig up a delay detonator.
Look at the circuit here (http://home.cogeco.ca/~rpaisley4/LM555.html), near the bottom of the page. Not much to it.

[Cobalt.45]

I wouldn't let the "anti-knock" properties of gasoline dissuade you from using it. This anti-knock additives work in a relatively small range- what I mean is, that the gasoline would only take a (relatively) small input of additional energy to detonate as opposed to untreated gasoline.

Ether would be good if a lesser resistance to internal combustion engine "knock-type" detonation is desired. When you start a car on it- or run a car on camp stove gasoline, it'll rattle like hell!!!

[-=HeX=-]

Hmmm... Well I think I have a plan... 3% nitroglycerin dissolved in either zippo fluid or camp stove gas, they are the same thing, right? Maybe some acetone peroxide dissolved also, about 4% also. Now I may also make another 3% of explosive or some sensitive fuel.

The burster will be 30 grams ETN, the initiating charge will be 50 grams, and the detcord will be 20 grams ETN in thin plastic tubeing, about 2 meters of it. Now the fuel is only 500 millilitres.

[fluoroantimonic]

You're right it probably doesn't make a huge difference. But still, gasoline with an octane of 87 versus diesel with an octane of 15, which do you think would be easier to detonate? I'm not sure how the low volitality of diesel would effect it though, I suppose it may offset the lower octane. Ether has a cetane of 90 and is very volatile and has a very wide explosive range so it should be about the best fuel other than epoxides or alkyl nitrates. Acetone actually has a fairly high octane rating, but its higher explosive range may compensate for that, I don't know.

I think there is a rough connection between autoignition temperature and sensitivity. So finding the autoignition temperature of your choice fuel should give a little bit of an idea of how sensitive it is.

Hex- That mixture should work pretty well. I would recommend using a larger initiator though, 50g ETN could easily work under perfect circumstances, but real conditions will be far from ideal. Also I think that burster is a little overkill, I would be afraid you would get too low of a concentration in the air. Its hard to say, experimentation is needed.

Your timed ignition will probably not work very well, with several meters of ETN detcord will not give you nearly enough of a delay. Save the 20g ETN and add it to the initiator. I would recommend buying something known as "quickmatch" or make it yourself, to make for fairly easy timed ignition. The commercial stuff I have seen has a burn rate of 80-100 feet per second, meaning if you needed a delay of 50ms you could use about 5 feet of it. You would want to test it yourself to confirm its speed, but it should be reliable enough. Since it wouldn't be ignited by the detonation of the burster, I would recommend using 2 lengths of it, one being 1 foot long section that runs to the burster, the other being 6 feet long running to the initiator. Both could be ignited at the same time by an electric match.

[-=HeX=-]

Quickmatch would be the way to go alright... And I may increase the amount of initiator charge to 100 grams or more, and use Quickmatch instead of detcord. However I have yet to work out the joltoe of the cloud, I think the cloud will be spherical, and I will work out the size it should be soon..

The initiator will be inside the spheres edge and seeing as it should be quite a small cloud, the delay would be quite short. I think a few feet of Quickmatch will certainly be the way to go, just to find a source for it or make some.

I guess I can save on the detcord for the other tests I plan to conduct. They are simple enough tests of the explosives I plan to synth this summer.

[fluoroantimonic]

Sounds like you have a pretty good plan worked out. Good luck man, I think you could very likely be successful. I can't wait to see your findings.

NameWithheld and I are collaborating on an FAE setup, hopefully we'll have some movies for you all in not too long. So far the plan is to use 25%NM R/C fuel with ETN or possibly MEKP/AP as an extra sensitizer. We might even make a pretty good sized blast, you know how NameWithheald is :p.

[johnathan_boy]

I've been thinking about OTC and cheap
Another obstacle for effective FAE use is the time delay detonation of the booster.
I have looked into 555 timer circuits and found that it would be quite cheap and simple to rig up a delay detonator.
Look at the circuit here (http://home.cogeco.ca/~rpaisley4/LM555.html), near the bottom of the page. Not much to it.

Ha! I used that exact web page a couple years ago for a project in college. Yup, 555 timers are cheap and easy to use and would be great for something like this.

Also, there was an episode of Future Weapons on the discovery channel a while ago where they demonstrated a fuel-air detonation very similar to the soda-bottle device shown in the patent fluoroantimonic referenced. It's an excellent piece of video showing the extreme over-pressure created in a fuel-air detonation. It also clears away any misconception that done right, it's not a Hollywood fireball but an actual detonation.

If anyone is interested the segment is up on youtube here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9xCgNdZPKk). The clip is part of a larger segment on thermobaric explosives which can be seen here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh-l1mr2h98&feature=related).

[-=HeX=-]

Well, I will be making two :D one that is initiated by flame, the other by a initiator charge. I hope the flame initiated one makes a nice flame. Unless its like an experiment I read of where it just all detonated anyways... Still, for me its all for the fun of it.

Flouroantimonic: I wish you and namewithheld the best of luck, and knowing namewithheld, its going to be absolutely huge. Make sure its a success, a failure would be embarrasing and expensive. Just some advice, for if mine fails the shame of making a balls of something I have spent so long working on...