thermit bomb

[ogi]

ok gentleman/hers
ive been busy with a concept of the good old thermit bomb ive got a ready supply of thermit and my goal was a bang with 3000degC shrapnel but all that happenend was that i melted my container which was 2 inch gal pipe

i epdated to 4 inch gal pipe with 3/4 inch load in the middle and surrounded with
concrete still no bang
how do you make an actual thermite bomb as is used in the army

sory but it was capped with screw on caps which i forgot to mention

i want this thing to throw my hot load at least 20 meters

thought of using he/le but both would burn early
any ideas??

[kingspaz]

you could make a batch of very fine thermite which will burn much fatser than usual. put a little of this in a plastic bag then put it in you container. fill the rest of the container with ordinary thermite. the fast stuff should explode the container and ignite the slow stuff. not sure if it would work but it may be possible. not sure whether thermite produces much gas though. i think it would only make a small amount of fine AlO3. addition of NH4NO3 would increase the gas volume.

[BrAiNFeVeR]

If you surround the explosive charge with thermite, you'd be pretty sure of a BANG ...
You can try to run your fuse trough the termite, so that ignites a second or so earlier then the HE (I don't think HE is able to ignite Thermite, it would just blow it away ... someone correct me if I'm wrong)

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"Mess with me, and you'll end up with a .44 under your chin and your brains on the ceiling"

[Mr Cool]

3CuO + 2Al --> Al2O3 + 3Cu
This burns fast. Do use pure, fine chemicals though. PbO works too, but the flame isn't as pretty http://theforum.virtualave.net/ubb/smilies/smile.gif. Not much gas, but it should work.
Have you ever seen those crackling sparklers? They use Mg and PbO, made into little grains. They explode with a sharp "crack", and there's no confinement for them.

[CragHack]

kingspaz might be on to something when he mentioned the addition of NH4NO3 to the lot. NH4NO3 explosivly decomposes at 300 degrees celcius. (as in detonates) i would like to sight the happenings in texas city, texas like 50 years ago. A boat called the "grand camp" was loaded with NH4NO3 and caught on fire. when it had time to heat up, the NH4NO3 went boom. (just as a measure of power) the 2 ton anchor on the boat detached, flew 2 miles and got embeded in the ground. now i don't know how much NH4NO3 was on the boat, tons i believe but...

anyway, the temp of the thermite should ignite the NH4NO3 and make it explode and then send the rest of the thermite flying.

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"If you must, do it with intelligent people, at least they know how to talk to the cops."

[Bitter]

Wasn't there a topic on detonating ANFO with thermite a few months ago ? I think AN be used as the HE because AN explodes if you heat it too much. I bet surrounding a charge of AN with thermite would work, providing all of the thermite is burning at the time of detonation.

[deezs]

Fill a plastic container with thermite, and surround it with candles. The burning thermite evaporates and lightes the paraffine very fast. It is used as firebomb.

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"Don't belive anything, just because there is a good proverb for it."

"To avoid injury in a battle, watch them from the nearer hill."

[BoB-]

"i want this thing to throw my hot load at least 20 meters"

I found that funny.

Anyways, the idea came up not long ago, to surround a full Co2 cartridge with thermite, when the Co2 cartridge burst do to the extreme heat, it would throw the burning thermite (and shrapnel!) everywhere.

Thermite that I've seen ignited throws its sparks and molten slag a fair distance all by itself.

If your interested at all in incindiaries, use aluminum piping, or aluminum cans, the Aluminum shell actually ignites, emitting blinding white light

[-A-]

ogi, whats a thermite bomb?. As I see it, the thermite reaction melts things, I don't think it is able to blow a pipe or something as only heat is produced in large quantities.

[zaibatsu]

I did think of a CO2/thermite type device, no doubt thought of before me though. What about a thermite/oxygen cannister type device? That might look nice http://theforum.virtualave.net/ubb/smilies/smile.gif

[Anthony]

"i want this thing to throw my hot load at least 20 meters"

20 metres is well beyon the scope of performance for the average individual (using the natural system). So you're going ot need some kind of mechanical device. Simply throwing the stuff from a little cup is probably unlikely to reach 20 metres, and passing through the air is likely to cool it, resulting in the load not being hot on arrival at it's target. Best thing would probably to enclose it in a capsule like a plastic Kinder Egg thingy, launching from a catapult (slingshot, wristrocket if you're of the yankee persuasion) would probably give good results.

Edit: as this may take many practises to get right, can you produce the stuff in reasonable quantity regulary throughout the day? Or would you collect it over a period of time? If so you should be careful about how long you store it as I doubt it keeps very long (best put it in the fridge).

[This message has been edited by Anthony (edited August 17, 2001).]

[J]

I thought NH4NO3 required high pressure as well as heat to detonate by itself? All the accidents I've read about involved huge quantities, thus large pressures.

J

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[CragHack]

well the grand camp had at least a ton, but i am banking on tons of ammonium nitrate in storage when it went up. BUT, in my 11th grade chemistry book (this is where i got the info on the temp from) it had a picture of a small metal receptical throwing sparks, stating that ammonium nitrate explosivley decomposes at 300 degrees celcius. so, to acheieve full detonating i bet there has to be a certain amount, just like in regular explosive use, when trying to set it off with a cap. but in general the shit will go up at any quantity (but not detonating)

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"If you must, do it with intelligent people, at least they know how to talk to the cops."

[Anthony]

The Grand Camp had thousands of tonnes on board.

I'm pretty sure you need pressure as well as heat to detonate NH4NO3 too. The figure 200psi seems familiar.

[BoB-]

200psi? that would be easilly acheivable in steel by using Co2, or would that screw up the ability to detonate?

A couple of chunks of dry ice, and a lump of thermite =detonator?

[mtness]

1st

what about mixing thermite with flash powder then putting that in a CO2?

[metafractal]

Use N2O cannisters instead of CO2, so as to oxidize the flame instead of muffling it.

[randall]

Antony, that sounds about right. I remember hearing about the Grand Camp explosion, and that aside from the huge quantities, the cargo hold was sealed down to keep the fire from spreading. As it heated the pressure built up, with the heat and pressure causing the explosion.

[Yellow]

Straight termite is used for creating a very concentrated heat in a small area, rather than spreading flames over a large area.
However, simply adding sulphur to it, will make it burn more explosive, throwing sparks and burning particles around.

[streety]

If you want to spread fire and destruction for 20 metres using thermite you need to approach it in one of two ways.

Firstly you can allow the thermite reaction to reach completion (or close to it) and then spread molten iron about the place. The problem with this is that if you want to carpet an area in molten iron you are going to need a small droplet size and so the iron will cool very rapidly, greatly reducing its effectiveness.

Alternatively you spread your thermite mixture about the target area in an initiated but unreacted (or only partially reacted) form. Thermite requires the aluminium and iron oxide (assuming you're using the basic thermite mixture) to be in contact and this isn't really favoured by spreading the mixture about over a large area. One way to overcome this may be to make a lot of small 'bomblets' of compacted aluminium/iron oxide mixture and then mix these in with a fast burning thermite mixture. The fast burning thermite mixture ignites the 'bomblets' and either serves as the spreading mechanism or activates another explosive compound that spreads the 'bomblets'. There is still the problem of the particles being spread needing to be large enough to stay hot while being small enough to allow enough to be packed into the device to carpet the target area.

Neither of these mechanisms are really ideal and as has already been mentioned I think you would be much better using the thermite reaction as a heat source for another mechanism to carpet the area in destruction.

[2,4,6-TNP]

If you are trying to start a fire all you need to do is place the thermite exactly on top of the fuel to be burned, as the fire grows it will spread to other areas. If thermite is to be used in a fuel deficiant area a fuel should be supplemented (thermite should not be considered an accelerant as it doesn't really spread fire that well, but it is a good igniter). Use a good accelerant, like kerosene, to spread the fire. WHEREI don't think that thermite in a powder form can reliably and evenly be spread in all directions, you would have to have an explosive charge in the center of the molten iron to do that job. I'm not sure if your idea here is to design a thermite canister, where you can just light a fuse throw it into a building or whatever and reliably and with out any doubt in your mind burn everything to the ground. I would be interested in designing such a canister.AREThermite munitions used in warfare are very heavy, hundreds of pounds. The thermite is in the form of large pellets, Thermite that has been pressed together under thousands of PSI. The pellets are usually ignited by a fast burning white phosphorus mixture that ignites all the pellets at once. A large, high explosive bursting charge hurls the burning pellets in all directions. So it is basically like a fragmentation bomb, only the fragments are burning and will ignite any fuel they touch. THEMaybe one of us will figure out how to make these large pellets and ignite them all at once and use some TNT or other HE as a bursting charge. This would be a very effective weapon But it would be important to make the pellets each probably into 1 1/2" in diameter so they will provide enough slag to stay hot long enough to start a fire. Such a device could probably be made out of a canister with a srew top lid. PARAGRAPHThe inmost part would be a detonator, then a layer of TNT, then a layer of a first fire mix made out of the usual powdered aluminum, sulphur, and potassium nitrate, then a layer of large thermite pellets, and finaly the thin wall of the canister. It would work like this: you light the fuse which burns through a drilled hole in the casing, burns past the thermite pellets, to ignite the first fire mix, which burns very fast all the way around the TNT igniting the surface of every pellet, the fuse continues to burn through the TNT, into the detonator which detonates the TNT which breaks the canister apart and sends the burning pellets out in every direction.BREAKS?! Maybe a good Idea would be to switch the thermite pellets with the first fire mix, having the TNT in contact with the pellets and the first fire mix in contact with the canister's wall. That way when the TNT detonates the pressure wave doesn't push directly on the ignited part of the pellet but rather on the opposite side so that it doesn't get put out. Well this is all speculation, but I think I will give this idea a try, to find out if the pellets will stay burning and if the blast will break them apart or if they will remain together. I will try to get use of a hydrolic press to make the pellets.NBK2000 I will try switching the positions of the first fire mix and the Pellets till I find something that works and if the HE keeps putting out the thermite or if it breaks the pellets into small peices I will try some black powder as a burster instead. It won't produce lethal fragmentation velocity, but it will definitly spread the pellets around! I just thought of a problem with my initial idea: the canister can not use a scew cap lid because the pressure from the deflagerating first fire mix may be great enough to burst the canister prematurely, so I think I will use a coffee can with a thin cotton rag taped on the top for a lid to release the initial pressure, but not allow the pellets and first fire mix to fall out of the can during transportation or throwing the device. The high explosive will have no problem blowing the can apart even though there is no lid to contain the pressure! It seems important to carfully time the delays between the first fire mix igniting and the TNT exploding! Maybe it doesn't matter, what I mean is maybe I would just need to blow up the TNT and it would ignite the first fire mix wich would in turn ignite the Thermite pellets. If that woked, it would take care of the pressure problem. The canister could be sealed tighter than a drum, but still the canister should be made out of a very thin, easily broken material so that the pellets will survive the explosion and won't be crushed up against the canister walls. Well I will keep working on this idea and will let everyone know when I have perfected it and what materials I finally ended up using!