Do Explosions Accelerate Constituents?
Most recent answer: 07/06/2010
Q:
Do explosions typically exhibit increasing acceleration of the exploding material at some stage of the explosion?
- Ray
Warrenton Virginia
- Ray
Warrenton Virginia
A:
You bet! That's the whole idea. An explosion, be it chemical, nuclear, or whatever, deposits a lot of energy into a small volume. This will raise the local pressure which in turn exerts forces on objects surrounding it. And, as you know, a la Newton: acceleration = force / mass.
LeeH
LeeH
(published on 07/06/2010)
Follow-Up #1: What about acceleration of acceleration?
Q:
This question is a follow up for "Do explosions accelerate constituents?". My question had to do with inceasing acceleration (jerk), not acceleration itself.
- Ray
Warrenton Virginia
- Ray
Warrenton Virginia
A:
Well, sure. There has to be some positive value of d3x/dt3 since the acceleration is zero moments before the explosion and finite moments afterward. There must be some non-zero value of the 'jerk'. Describing explosions in detail is a very difficult problem, I'm not sure how to calculate it myself. You need a very complicated gas-dynamics computer program to do it correctly.
LeeH
LeeH
(published on 07/12/2010)